Mechanical Engineering Intern

Based in Berkeley, CA, UPSIDE Foods grows meat, poultry, and seafood directly from animal cells.  These products are not vegan or vegetarian—they are delicious meat, made without the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals. UPSIDE Foods recently became the first company in the world to receive the US FDA greenlight for cultivated meat, and UPSIDE’s cultivated chicken will be available to consumers following USDA inspection and label approval.

Founded as the world’s first cultivated meat company in 2015, UPSIDE Foods (formerly Memphis Meats) has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including being the first company to produce multiple species of meat (beef, chicken, and duck). The company believes that people shouldn’t have to choose between the foods they love and a thriving planet, and is working to build a better food system with access to delicious, humane, and sustainable meat, poultry, and seafood. UPSIDE Foods has won various industry awards, including New York Times’ Good Tech Awards, FastCo’s Next Big Thing in Tech, and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in the Nation by the National Association for Business Resources. UPSIDE Foods has raised a total of $608 million, including from the Abu Dhabi Growth Fund (ADG), Baillie Gifford, Bill Gates, Cargill, John Doerr, John Mackey, Kimbal and Christiana Musk, Norwest, Richard Branson, Softbank, Temasek, Threshold, Tyson Foods, and others.

About this internship

The cultivated meat industry is brand new and growing fast, and that comes with some huge design challenges! We’re looking for a mechanical engineering intern who is excited to take on some of these challenges by designing custom equipment and processes to support teams across our company in scaling up production of cell-based meat. The right person will be ready to collaborate closely with our R&D teams to make their next experiments a reality by tackling unique mechanical engineering challenges that can incorporate everything from cell biology to materials science to sanitary design. Candidates should be excited to take on novel problems and proactive about finding solutions, as well as being prepared to work quickly on several different ideas & projects. As you develop your skills at turning your design ideas into reality, you’ll help us get one step closer to bringing cultivated meat to market!

Responsibilities include

• Collaborating with other teams to define needs, requirements, & specifications for design problems
• Designing custom parts & assemblies in CAD (Solidworks) and documenting them with engineering drawings
• Sending parts out for fabrication and coordinating with external vendors to ensure on-time delivery of high-quality parts
• Fabricating & altering parts using in-house equipment (mill, lathe, 3D printer, laser cutter, waterjet, drill press, etc.). This will be a very hands-on role!
• Building, testing, characterizing & iterating on components and systems to validate performance
• Documenting and presenting your ideas & design work to the larger team, including people with different technical backgrounds

About you

• Recent graduate or currently enrolled in a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering, or related field, or equivalent experience
• Experience using 3D CAD (SolidWorks preferred) and experience being hands-on building physical parts/systems
• Passion for the cultivated meat industry and mechanical design
• Curious and resourceful, with a bias for action!
• Excellent communication, organizational, attention to detail and problem-solving skills

Who you’ll work with

• Most closely, our internal mechanical engineering team
• Various teams across the company, from small-scale R&D to MSAT teams working to scale our processes up for manufacturing!