Associate Founder

We are hiring a Founder’s Associate who wants real ownership: working side by side with the CEO and a more experienced Founder’s Associate to open new markets, win customers and scale a deep-tech company. A degree in chemistry or chemical engineering is essential (chemical engineering preferred), as is commercial experience in a startup and/or consulting. We only hire A players.

💼 Competitive salary, 📊 meaningful equity and 🚀 massive upside – backed by world-class climate and deep-tech investors – in a founder-track role working side by side with the CEO.

Location: Oxford and London

Employment: Full-time, permanent

Start date: Immediate – as soon as possible

Visa sponsorship: Available for exceptional candidates

Company: A&B Smart Materials

Help Build the Future of a Global Industry

A&B Smart Materials is a materials science venture based at the University of Oxford Begbroke Science Park, developing bio-based and/or biodegradable superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) to replace today’s fossil-based plastics.

SAPs are almost magical materials: a single gram can absorb hundreds of grams of water. They are the absorbent cores inside diapers, menstrual pads and incontinence products, and the “water-storage crystals” that help soil retain moisture in agriculture. Today’s SAPs are persistent plastics, and regulatory pressure, consumer demand and the scale of the microplastics crisis are making sustainable alternatives increasingly urgent.

Our goal is simple and ambitious: to replace the synthetic superabsorbents that dominate a $9B market today, expected to reach $17B by 2035, with materials that achieve the essential trifecta of top performance, competitive pricing and large-scale manufacturability. This is a generational opportunity to reinvent an essential material and make sustainable SAPs the new standard.

Why A&B Smart Materials?

We recently closed a heavily oversubscribed $2M pre-seed round, backed by an exceptional group of investors including Sake Bosch, caesar., Living Hope VC, Archipelago Ventures, Triple Impact Ventures, Cranfield University Seed Fund and Oxford Seed Fund, alongside leading business angels from the Cambridge Capital Group and Oxford Innovation Finance.

A&B Smart Materials was named in the UK Startups 100 2026, won the Planet Positive Award at MRE 2026, and one of our founders has been recognised by Forbes 30 Under 30. We are supported by Chemstars, the EarthScale Accelerator and the Green Tech Legal Collaborative.

We have also signed a deal with one of the world’s largest chemical companies. Achieving this at our stage is an exceptional milestone and a strong validation of our technology, team and commercial momentum.

We have some of the best advisors in the industry. They include the former Managing Director, the former Head of Research and Development North America and the former Head of Production and Technology of the world’s third-largest superabsorbent polymer producer, industry veterans who have spent their careers working on superabsorbent polymers, and the inventor behind a key patent of one of our competitors.

Our mission is to make sustainable SAPs the global standard.

The Opportunity

We are hiring a Founder’s Associate to work directly with our CEO and take a central role in the commercial, operational and strategic development of A&B Smart Materials.

This is a high-ownership role. You will engage directly with global hygiene, chemical and agriculture companies, help structure co-development agreements, industrial trials and pre-orders, and build the operational backbone that keeps the company executing at speed.

Our customers and partners are technical, and so are our commercial conversations. That is why this role is only open to candidates with a degree in chemistry or chemical engineering who can understand our materials and processes, talk credibly with technical teams and turn that understanding into commercial progress. You will work closely with our CEO and a more experienced Founder’s Associate, who will help you get up to speed. We are looking to fill this role immediately.

What You Will Do

·  Lead commercial relationships. Manage partnerships with major hygiene, chemical and agriculture companies, including co-development agreements, industrial trials, pre-orders and other structured partnerships.

·  Explore new markets. Identify where our technology could be applied, find the customers in those markets and take each one from 0 to 1: from no knowledge of the market to signed deals.

·  Lead market analysis. Size markets, map customers, competitors and value chains, and turn the findings into clear recommendations on where we should focus.

·  Bridge the technical and the commercial. Translate our materials, processes and test data into clear value propositions, and bring customer requirements back to the research team.

·  Own the techno-economics and drive scale-up. Build cost models for our materials and processes, and manage scale-up with manufacturing partners so that what we sell can be made reliably and affordably.

·  Build clear, persuasive materials. Prepare outreach decks, reports and partner materials, and present confidently to senior stakeholders.

·  Run operations. Build and manage project-management structures, coordinating deliverables, timelines and cross-functional workflows.

·  Support financial planning. Prepare project budgets, cost projections and technical formulation cost analyses, and help align them with our cash plans.

·  Work on strategy with the CEO. Contribute to partnership roadmaps and key company decisions.

·  Support fundraising and grants. Prepare investor updates and board materials, and draft content and coordinate partners for large grant applications.

What We Are Looking For

We only hire A players. We want the best of the best: exceptional people who set high standards and raise the level of everyone around them.

A degree in chemistry or chemical engineering is essential. We will not consider applications without one.

Essential: a degree in chemistry or chemical engineering. Chemical engineering is preferred.

Essential: commercial experience, ideally in a startup and/or consulting, for example in strategy, business development, operations or finance.

You should also have:

·  Strong operations management ability: you structure processes, coordinate people and keep workstreams moving.

·  Excellent communication and presentation skills, and confidence with senior executives.

·  The ability to build budgets, cost projections and simple cost models.

·  Strong organisation and project management, with a “get it done” ownership mindset.

·  Confidence working with technical teams and learning complex concepts quickly.

Industry Experience Is an Advantage

We particularly value experience with:

·  Early-stage startups or deep-tech commercialisation.

·  Materials, chemicals, hygiene or agriculture industries.

·  Process scale-up, manufacturing or techno-economic analysis.

·  Additional languages, such as German, Mandarin or Japanese, for work with international partners.

How You Work

·  Proactive. You take the initiative and keep things moving.

·  Ambitious. You are hungry to succeed and eager to take on responsibility.

·  Hands-on. A genuine “roll your sleeves up” mentality: no ego, just action.

·  A team player. You thrive in a small, high-performance team.

·  Comfortable with change. Priorities move quickly at our stage, and you adapt without losing momentum.

Our Culture and What We Offer

We are an ambitious, collaborative, results-oriented startup, for people who take ownership, move with urgency and want to do the best work of their careers. We offer:

·  Meaningful equity, so your success is aligned with the company’s.

·  Comprehensive health insurance and 28 days of paid holiday annually.

·  High autonomy and responsibility from day one, working side by side with the CEO and learning from a more experienced Founder’s Associate.

·  Access to world-class investors, advisors and industry leaders, and close collaboration with one of the world’s largest chemical companies.

·  The chance to help build a category-defining company from an early stage.

Join Us

If you are a chemist or chemical engineer with commercial experience who wants to move into the commercial heart of a deep-tech company, and you are among the best at what you do, we want to hear from you. We are reviewing applications as they arrive and can move quickly for the right candidate.

Application form: https://tally.so/r/WJEkER

Recruitment email: recruitment@absmartmaterials.com (monitored only irregularly – please apply through the application form)