About Natural Negative
Natural Negative is a materials science company optimising biomaterials science with AI. We design compostable formulations that match or surpass conventional plastics: production-ready and drop-in compatible with existing manufacturing lines.
We believe everything humans encounter and consume should make them healthier. The biomaterials that could deliver that already exist; the industry hasn't yet made them practical to adopt at scale. We're optimising that: faster, cheaper, less risky.
We're investor-backed, with active Innovate UK grants and partnerships across leading research and innovation organisations. Our lab is at Plus X Innovation Hub, Brighton.
The role
As our full-stack engineer, you'd own the build of our customer-facing platform, working closely with the CTO, who leads the technical direction. You'd turn customer needs into working features — front end through to backend services — and work alongside our ML engineer to get our models into the product.
In practice:
Build and maintain the platform end to end — the UI, the APIs, and the database behind them.
Turn real customer needs into working, seamless features.
Own auth, access control, and secure, reliable cloud deployment (GCP).
Help shape the product and technical decisions alongside the founding team.
Get our ML capabilities into the hands of customers.
You'd be early enough to shape how we build, and the platform you build is the engine our technology scales on. It's a rare chance to own a product end to end, close to genuinely novel science.
How we work
We say what we think, kindly. We move thoughtfully. Sprint culture doesn't solve materials science problems. We're here because the problem is interesting and the science is unfinished.
Requirements
Must have:
Full-stack experience: you've built and shipped products end-to-end, and can own your delivery, with the CTO setting the wider technical direction.
Strong full-stack skills (modern JS/TS front end + backend services) and solid API and database design.
A track record of scoping and shipping in a small, fast-moving team — comfortable when not much is handed to you.
Auth, access control, and secure, reliable cloud deployment (GCP).
Genuine interest in the underlying problem. You'd be building the platform that makes sustainable materials usable; if that doesn't sound interesting, this isn't the role.
Nice to have:
Experience taking a product from early build to live customers.
Experience building multi-customer / SaaS platforms.
How you work:
You take ownership and finish what you start.
You have opinions and you say them, but they're rooted in considered thinking rather than reflex.
You're a good colleague: friendly, empathetic, and able to operate in a flat team.
Benefits
A competitive salary + meaningful equity.
A direct working relationship with the founders. No layers between you and the people making decisions.
28 days holiday plus bank holidays.
Workplace pension scheme.
Remote working, with lab and studio space at Plus X Innovation Hub, Brighton, if you want it.
A team that doesn't reward presenteeism and doesn't micromanage. Family, rest, and time to think are how good work gets done, not what gets traded to do it.