Internship – Technology and Engineering

POSTED: 12 February 2025
STARTING DATE: As soon as possible

Internship – Technology and Engineering

The mission of The Ocean Cleanup is to rid the world’s oceans of plastic.

Our multi-disciplinary Technology team within the Science & Technology department develops, evolves and applies a portfolio of robust, scalable technical solutions for River and Pacific plastic cleanup, enabling effective and long-term operations across a diverse range of challenging environments.

"We offer internships in varying flavors; from direct involvement in running projects, to technology, method and tool development, to hybrid topics. Each of those can have a more theoretical or more practical approach. We tune the internship topic and approach to the skills and interests of the best applicants and the needs of our team. Whichever core topic we go for; you will always also be involved in some real-life projects, where our engineers teach you tricks of the trade – from analyzing problems to designing, verifying and implementing solutions!" - Samo Simonian, Technical Architect

THE ASSIGNMENT

Depending on your skills and interests, and the timing of your internship, you’ll be involved in a relevant sub-selection of the following typical work:

• Support the development and evolution of our integrated technical vision & roadmap through pipeline, technology and market (gap) analyses.
• Scout & rank plastic interception locations and make a range of concept designs.
• Develop novel hardware, software or hybrid technologies for plastic interception, plastic extraction, system mooring, sensing/measurement or other functions in the cleanup systems.
• Develop custom methods and tools/software for the reliable design and verification of our plastic cleanup solutions.
• Support the development and implementation of R&D and engineering guidelines.
• Model and analyze the performance and other phenomena of our solutions (using analytical, numerical, FEA or CFD methods as relevant).
• Create 2D and/or 3D drawings of designs, mock-ups and prototypes.
• Interact with colleagues in other departments for seamless integration of the solutions.
• Depending on the timing and topic of your internship, you may be involved in manufacturing, installation, testing and operation support in R&D campaigns or operational deployments in the field.

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Education in a relevant technical degree (e.g. mechanical, mechatronics, civil, marine, off-shore, software, systems engineering, environmental technologies).
• Good communication and report-writing skills, with proficiency in the English language.

What gives you an edge?

• Affinity with practical design, production, testing and operation.
• Experience with analytical and numerical modelling and analysis.
• Experience in design and simulation software.
• Experience with well structured (python) programming.
• Affinity with "stuff on and in the water" (boats, sailing etc).

PERSONAL QUALIFICATIONS

• Intrinsic motivation for our mission to rid the world’s oceans and rivers of plastics.
• Pro-activeness to learn fundamental and applied engineering.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Attention to detail and ability to work with complex information.
• Creativity and pragmatism.
• Autonomy on assigned work (supported by a supervisor and colleagues).
• At least a rudimentary sense of humor is required.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

• Depending on the topic, you will be supervised by our cross-departmental Technical Architect, our Head of Technology or one of the specialized or multi-disciplinary Engineers in the Technology department.
• Duration: 4 month nominal minimum. 6 months or longer ideally. Deviations can be discussed.
• Combination with or add-on of a graduation project can be discussed.
• A valid Dutch work permit is required.