Electrochemical Stack Design Engineer

Key Responsibilities

Stack Design & Development

- Lead the mechanical design of electrochemical stacks, including flow fields, bipolar and monopolar plates, end plates, current collectors, manifolds, frames and spacers, gaskets, and compression systems.

- Design for uniform flow distribution and current distribution across cells, including internal manifolding, shunt current mitigation, and electrical isolation between cells and to ground.

- Develop sealing and compression strategies that account for membrane and gasket behaviour, including membrane swelling, creep and relaxation, thermal cycling, and long-term compression retention.

- Select materials for wetted and structural components in acidic and alkaline environments, balancing corrosion resistance, conductivity, chemical compatibility, cost and manufacturability.

- Perform tolerance stack-ups across multi-cell assemblies, compression and bolted-joint analysis, and structural, thermal or flow analysis (FEA/CFD) where it informs design decisions.

- Create detailed 3D CAD models, engineering drawings, assemblies and bills of materials to support prototype fabrication.

Prototyping, Testing & Scale-Up

- Design fixtures, tooling, assembly jigs and test hardware for cell and stack development, including leak, pressure and compression testing.

- Develop and document stack assembly, inspection and teardown procedures, and use post-mortem analysis of tested stacks to drive design improvements.

- Work with prototype technicians, engineers and external manufacturing partners to fabricate, assemble, troubleshoot and rapidly iterate on stack hardware.

- Lead mechanical root cause analysis for leaks, cross-over, flow maldistribution, corrosion and other failure modes.

- Drive stack architecture decisions for scale-up, including active area, cell count, manufacturability, assembly time, serviceability and cost.

- Evaluate and work with external stack and component suppliers, and contribute mechanical expertise to vendor technical reviews.

- Maintain engineering documentation, revision control, design standards and technical records throughout development.

- Other duties as required to achieve CURA’s milestones.

Safety & Documentation

- Demonstrate consistent attention to safe work practices, including work with pressurized systems, electrolytes and electrical equipment.

Collaboration & Communication

- Work well in a team setting and collaborate effectively across an interdisciplinary team of electrochemists, process engineers and technicians.

- Bring a results orientation along with strong interpersonal, communication and presentation skills.

- Communicate outcomes clearly and provide recommendations for further development to the management team.

- Demonstrate an aptitude for problem solving, troubleshooting, collaboration and innovation.

- Responsibly identify and manage IP, and communicate it to management, internal team members and external stakeholders.

Leadership & External Relations

- Be a self-starter who can work independently and manage multiple competing priorities.

- Manage relationships with external stakeholders such as vendors, suppliers and fabrication partners.

- Bring excellent organizational, project and time management capabilities.

- Contribute to a culture of honesty, transparency, innovation and safety.

Qualifications

Required

- Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering or a related discipline.

- Three or more years of hands-on mechanical design experience on electrochemical stacks such as water electrolyzers, CO₂ electrolyzers, fuel cells, electrodialysis or bipolar membrane electrodialysis units, redox flow batteries, or chlor-alkali cells.

- Demonstrated experience taking stack hardware from concept through prototype, fabrication, assembly and testing.

- Direct experience with gasket and seal design, compression-loaded assemblies, and leak-tight fluidic systems in a stack context.

- Practical knowledge of materials for electrochemical environments, including polymers, coated and uncoated metals, and their compatibility with acidic or alkaline electrolytes.

- Proficiency in 3D CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion 360, Creo or similar), including assemblies, detailed drawings and BOMs.

- Working command of GD&T, tolerance stack-ups and design-for-manufacturing principles.

- A hands-on approach, including time in the lab and shop to see how designs perform and iterating quickly on what you learn.

Nice to Have

- Experience scaling stacks in active area or cell count, or moving from lab-scale to pilot or commercial-scale hardware.

- Familiarity with ion exchange membranes, bipolar membranes, porous transport layers or gas diffusion layers, and how they affect mechanical design.

- FEA or CFD experience applied to stack compression, thermal management or flow distribution.

- Experience with manufacturing processes used in stack production, such as CNC machining, injection or compression molding, stamping, coating, or additive manufacturing, and direct experience working with external fabrication partners.

- Experience designing for serviceability and component replacement in industrial settings.

- P.Eng designation or eligibility for registration with APEGA (or a Canadian equivalent).

- Experience in a startup or other fast-moving, resource-constrained engineering environment.

What We Offer

- Competitive salary and early-stage equity stock options.

- Generous vacation policy and a flexible, mission-driven culture.

- A chance to make a measurable impact on global climate solutions.

- Ownership of the stack design for a first-of-a-kind technology, with the latitude to make real engineering decisions rather than execute someone else’s.

- A close, technically deep team where your work moves from your screen to a running stack in weeks, not quarters.