Wastewater Scientist/Engineer

Drizzle Health is hiring a Wastewater Scientist/Engineer!

We’re looking for someone who has spent real time with raw influent! Up to 12-month contract, up to 40hours/wk · $65–85/hour depending on experience. This role is contingent on a pending grant award. We’re identifying candidates now and expect to start on award, likely Q4 2026.

Description of the Opportunity

In wastewater metagenomic sequencing, human viruses are roughly one read in ten thousand (e.g. CASPER, which sequences about a billion read pairs per sample for exactly that reason). Most of the rest is bacterial, and only 10–15% of the microbial genetic material in treatment-plant influent is human-derived. That ratio, not sequencing depth, sets both the sensitivity and the cost of detecting a new pathogen.

This project is about figuring out a concentration method that removes background without also losing the signal.

Who We Are

Drizzle Health builds tunable polymer capture surface devices that concentrate microbes out of samples including high-load, water inline, at litre-per-minute, across lab & industrial scales. These devices are aimed at global health, food, and biosecurity.

Who You Are

• You’ve worked with raw municipal wastewater. Collection, autosamplers, composite versus grab, chain of custody, and the safety practices that go with it.
• You’ve run the incumbent concentration methods on real influent. PEG precipitation, affinity-particle capture, ultrafiltration or adsorption, etc.
• You’re fluent in extraction & quantification. Nucleic acid extraction from environmental matrices, qPCR, RT-PCR, etc.
• You are agile and good at documentation. We are building the plane as we fly it. Not all tasks will be well-defined before you start them. Documentation is important.

Your Responsibilities

Formulation rounds at roughly weekly cadence, across two generations, with a sequencing checkpoint between them. You run the screening cascade that decides which formulations advance. Many stages will be read out twice on the same sample e.g. surrogate recovery by qPCR for virion capture, 16S ribosomal RNA by RT-qPCR for bacterial capture. 

Alongside the cascade, other activities may include:

• Characterise the matrix on every run (turbidity, TSS, pH, conductivity) so results are transferable.
• Deploy, operate and maintain devices at the sampling site.
• Write protocols  for publications.
• Act as technical interface with our academic partner, who runs the evaluations.

The Terms

Up to 12 months, up to 40 hours/week, on a 1099 basis. $65 - 85 per hour depending on experience, roughly $135,000–150,000 annualised. No health benefits will be provided. The position is Baltimore-based with potential travel to the sampling site(s), or remote-plus-site if you’re already near a plant we can work with. All of this is estimated and is subject to actual grant awards.

Perks

Long hours, unlimited beer. Your name goes on any publication or patent that comes out of your contribution. We expect this to be fast iterative science & engineering, and the work will likely be citable.

How to Apply

Send your resume and answers to the following to info@drizzlehealth.com:

• Describe a time where a method  underperformed on real wastewater compared to what the literature said. What did you conclude?
• Write 100 words or more about something that matters.
• How is this job going to help you with your next goals/milestones or life?