R&D Intern — Materials Science / Chemistry / Polymer Processing

KUORI is a Swiss deep-tech startup turning food industry byproducts — olive pits, walnut shells, nutshells — into high-performance bio-based materials for industrial applications. We are small, technical, and serious about what we build. Our materials are EU Horizon and Eurostars-funded, and we have been awarded Renewable Material of the Year 2023.

We are looking for an R&D Intern to work hands-on in our Schlieren lab. This is not a shadowing role. You will run experiments, characterize materials, and contribute to formulations that go directly to customers.

What You'll Do

• Formulate and process bio-based composite materials (compounding, mixing, extrusion)
• Characterize mechanical, thermal, and rheological properties
• Support in design and run experiments,
• Indepently document results, analyze material performance data
• Support scale-up from lab quantities to pilot batches
• Contribute to R&D documentation and grant deliverables (EU Horizon / Eurostars)
• Work directly with our R&D team — no layers, no busywork

Your Profile

• BSc or MSc in Materials Science, Polymer Engineering, Chemistry, or a related field — or in your final year
• Hands-on lab experience: you are comfortable with equipment, not just theory
• Curious, systematic, and honest about data — even when results are unexpected
• Startup mentality: you figure things out, you don’t wait to be told
• Good written English (lab reports, data documentation)

Why KUORI

• Real lab work from week one — not coffee and PowerPoints
• Work on materials that are genuinely novel and used in real products
• Flat team, direct access to founders and R&D leads
• EU-funded research environment with international partners
• Lab + office in Schlieren (ZH) — partial remote possible for non-lab days

Duration: 3–6 months. Start: flexible, ideally Q3 2026. Location: Schlieren, ZH.

Don’t wait until your CV is perfect — send us a short intro and tell us what you’ve worked on in the lab.