Materials & Technical Compliance Engineer

Founded in 2017, rePurpose Global is the leading Packaging Sustainability & Compliance platform for consumer companies. We enable brands to measure their plastic footprint, recover plastic waste from nature through a global partner network, and streamline compliance across 45+ packaging regulations — all from one platform. rePurpose has recovered over 100 million pounds of plastic waste, supported 2,300+ waste workers, and maintains 12 active impact projects worldwide. Headquartered in New York.

About the role

rePurpose Global helps brands meet their Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) obligations across a fast-growing set of U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions, with expansion into global circular economy frameworks. Every defensible compliance filing relies on exact technical truth: precisely defining what a product is made of, then mapping those attributes directly into statutory rules. As our Materials & Technical Compliance Engineer, you'll own the technical core of dissecting complex BOMs, raw material specs, and material attributes across thousands of SKUs.

This is a hands-on material analysis role: you'll break a product or packaging assembly into its constituent materials, layers, and coatings; determine composition and weights — building Full Material Disclosures (FMD) when suppliers can't provide one; and translate that into precise classification decisions grounded in the statutory text of each jurisdiction. You'll also model material switches, source-reduction options, and lower-fee alternatives grounded in design-for-circularity principles, shaping the rules engine behind our proprietary compliance and material optimization platform.

You'll resolve the hardest classification and material questions, own the classification logic that turns material facts into correct reports, and work alongside product and engineering teams to inform and ground their work. Day-to-day, you'll own the technical calls that turn material facts into accurate, defensible reporting and audit-defensible filings.

Responsibilities

• Analyze material composition & BOM structures: break components into materials, layers, formulations, and coatings; determine resin, substrate, or compound types, percentages, and weights; build defensible assumed compositions and material proxies when supplier specifications are incomplete or missing.
• Make classification determinations grounded in regulation: translate material composition into correct reporting classifications for each jurisdiction, applying relevant statutory and program definitions.
• Model material recommendations for customers: run material-switch, source-reduction, and fee-scenario analyses — identifying more recyclable, lower-fee, or reduced-material alternatives — and translate tradeoffs (cost, physical performance, eco-modulation rates) into actionable guidance.
• Own the classification logic: author and maintain the classification configuration (routing rules that map material attributes to reporting categories) across jurisdictions, modernizing it as regulation and materials evolve.
• Run rigorous quality control: own schema conformance and a multi-pass QC process — checking for material and threshold errors, gaps, overlaps, and misroutes — and provide final technical sign-off on client deliverables.
• Resolve the hardest technical questions: serve as the deepest tier of the technical queue for escalated composition, classification, exemption, and mapping questions.
• Shape our automated recommendation engine: define the material science, threshold, and specification rules that power our platform's automated material suggestions and compliance routing.
• Bridge materials science and platform logic: supply the physical material and regulatory requirements the product and engineering team build against, translating material properties into structured rules for our platform engine.
• Support bespoke material deep-dives: perform in-depth, bespoke material analysis and technical recyclability/circularity evaluations for customers.

Requirements

• A materials or engineering foundation: a degree and/or substantial hands-on background in materials science, chemistry, plastics/polymer engineering, textile engineering, packaging science/engineering, industrial or mechanical engineering, or a related field.
• Material analysis ability: the ability to reason about what products and materials are made of — resins, laminates, coatings, composites, synthetics, or multi-layer assemblies — how those materials behave, and how to estimate composition and weight when data is incomplete.
• Analytical rigor and precision: exceptional attention to detail and comfort owning precise, high-stakes analysis and quality-control work where small errors have real reporting and financial consequences.
• A strong interest in policy and research: the temperament to ground technical decisions in regulatory text, and the diligence to research and defend a determination rather than guess.
• Clear technical communication: the ability to translate material and regulatory analysis into requirements and explanations that product, engineering, and customer teams can act on.

Nice to Have

• Applied material domain expertise: hands-on experience working with physical materials — as a raw material supplier, converter, chemical evaluator, or manufacturer — or deep familiarity with material characterization, specs, and processing methods. (Packaging expertise is a strong advantage.)
• Technical tooling & automation: comfort with data analysis, ERP structures, or technical software, plus hands-on scripting or automation experience (e.g., Python, SQL) to build, test, and streamline workflows.
• EPR / sustainability exposure: prior work in EPR, compliance, sustainability, or circular economy across the U.S. (e.g., state-level Producer Responsibility Laws), Canada (e.g., PRO programs), or Europe.
• Lifecycle or recyclability analysis: familiarity with life-cycle assessment (LCA), design-for-recyclability/circularity protocols, or recycled-content evaluation.

Schedule

The role is remote for US-based candidates. For those located near the New York City head office, this is a hybrid position with 3 days per week in-office at 1460 Broadway.