Jobs at Pioreactor

1. Manufacturing, R&D, and Prototyping Generalist

Full-time, In-Office (Waterloo, Ontario)
Start: Flexible (Q1 2026)

At Pioreactor, we build biology tools that change the unit-cost of biology. Our microbioreactors and software empower researchers, labs, and educators to run reliable experiments without expensive equipment. We iterate fast, ship often, and care deeply about quality, customizability, and what our community can accomplish with our products.

This is a greenfield role with real impact. You will help define how we design, make, test, document, and ship the physical products that customers use daily. If you enjoy moving fluidly between CAD models, printers, workbench builds, and production workflows, you’ll thrive here.

What you’ll do

We are a start up, so you'll be wearing many hats. For example:

R&D and prototyping

  • Rapidly design and iterate mechanical components in CAD, build prototypes, and validate them.
  • Research new bioreactor designs that could expand our product line.
  • Hands-on testing to uncover reliability, usability, and manufacturability improvements.
  • Track new technologies (sensors, materials, prints, mechanisms) and translate them into practical experiments or prototype builds.

Manufacturing, QA, kitting, and fulfillment

  • Assemble kits and finished products.
  • Design jigs to improve manufacturing consistency.
  • Run and improve QA processes: define pass/fail criteria, and iterate on tests.
  • Improve manufacturing processes (especially 3D printing and post-processing), including researching new materials and techniques that improve quality and repeatability.

Software and tooling

  • Build new internal tools to make your life easier.
  • Write clear, up-to-date build guides, QA checklists, and internal tooling docs.
  • Improve customer-facing documentation.

What we’re looking for

You’re a fit if you have:

  • A comfort flipping between hands-on builds and CAD/engineering design.
  • CAD skills and an eye for designing parts that are easy to manufacture and assemble.
  • Solid experience 3D printing end-to-end. You know PrusaSlicer's quirks and can exploit them.
  • Practical programming ability.
  • Some familiarity with biology or lab workflows so you can reason clearly about how our products will be used.
  • Experience with Git in real workflows (branching, PRs, collaboration).
  • A mechatronics mindset: you reason across mechanical, electrical, and software boundaries.

Nice-to-haves:

  • Comfortable with Python and willing to use it for tooling, tests, or small automation.
  • Experience with ecommerce systems (order flows, fulfillment tooling, customer comms).

Why this role matters

We ship products that people rely on for serious research and education. Building reproducible, high-quality hardware and workflows is core to our mission to bring accessible bioreactors to the world. In this role you’ll directly shape that reality, and your work will be visible in every unit we ship.

How to apply

Email Cam (CEO) at cam@pioreactor.com with:

  • Your resume (skip a CV)
  • A description of something you built or improved (hardware, process, docs, tests, etc)
  • Optional: portfolio, GitHub, photos, CAD screenshots

Subject line: Manufacturing + Prototyping (Full-time)



Not seeing what you are looking for? We are always on the look out for people who want to work on making biology more accessible. If you are a better hardware hacker than most biologists, and better at biology than most hardware hackers, let us know! Email us at hello@pioreactor.com

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