About the vacancy
R&D Food & Protein
About Your Next Job
- Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands (On-site)
- Type: Full-time (32 hours/week), 6-month internship
- Start Date:1 April 2026
About Fooditive
We’re a purpose-driven biotech company on a mission to make healthy food accessible for everyone. Rather than running our own in-house labs, we collaborate with a network of contract manufacturers, strain-development firms, and fermentation partners. Together with global food brands, we turn science into scalable, sustainable products—faster and more efficiently.
The Role
We are looking for a sharp scientific mind who knows their way around an E. coli expression system. You have the wet-lab background, you understand the science, and now we need you to apply that knowledge to guide our external partnerships and in-silico designs.
You will be part of our R&D operations team, acting as the scientific architect behind our next-generation recombinant protein projects.
About Your Tasks and Responsibilities
Your Key Responsibilities
- Support Construct & Plasmid Design: Learn to design, review, and track DNA sequences, plasmid maps, and vector-based constructs for recombinant protein expression under the guidance of our scientific team.
- Assist in Strain Development: Help the R&D team analyze E. coli strain workflows and learn how to optimize them to maximize yield.
- Technical Coordination & Shadowing: Shadow our leadership team in communications with external contract labs, gaining real-world experience in how molecular designs are translated into wet-lab execution.
- Data Review & Troubleshooting: Support the analysis of experimental data (qPCR, SDS-PAGE, ELISA, fermentation results) returned from our partners, learning how to interpret results to guide the next cycle of strain optimization.
About Your Skills and Experience
Who You Are
- Education: Currently pursuing or recently completed a BSc or MSc in Biotechnology, Bioinformatics, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Bioprocess Engineering, or a strictly related field.
- The Science: You have actual academic or practical experience working with E. coli expression systems, recombinant proteins, and cloning.
- The Skills: You are highly comfortable reading and interpreting DNA sequences and plasmid maps. You are analytical, detail-oriented, and ready to manage scientific workflows.
- Language: Fluent in English.
- Location & Visa: You MUST be currently based in the Netherlands with the legal right to intern here. We cannot provide visa sponsorship or relocation support.
About Your Benefits
What We Offer
- A €700 monthly stipend.
- A structured, 6-month internship with weekly guidance from our CEO
- Deep industry exposure to how precision fermentation and biotech scale from idea to commercial product.
- Priority consideration for a future full-time role based on performance.
Where Molecules Meet Opportunities
At Fooditive, you will be part of a mission-driven biotech company shaping the future of sustainable food innovation. This internship offers valuable exposure to recombinant protein development, strain design, and precision fermentation workflows in a real industry setting. You will learn from experienced scientific leadership, support meaningful R&D activities, and gain insight into how biotech innovation moves from concept to commercial application.
Only apply if...
You are pursuing or have recently completed a degree in Biotechnology, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Bioinformatics, Bioprocess Engineering, or a related field. You already have hands-on academic or lab-based experience with E. coli expression systems, recombinant proteins, and cloning, and you are comfortable interpreting DNA sequences and plasmid maps. You must be fluent in English, currently living in the Netherlands, and legally eligible to intern on-site without visa sponsorship.
You are eligible to work in EU
We only accept applicants who are eligible to work in the EU
Contact person
samar Abushokhedim
Fooditive is a pioneering Dutch biotechnology company providing a validated precision fermentation PLATFORM for licensing. We empower global food & beverage leaders and ingredient innovators to unlock next-generation sustainable food solutions. Our core mission is to make breakthrough sustainable nutrition affordable and accessible worldwide.
We achieve this by licensing our cutting-edge, capital-efficient Fooditive Engine™ – a versatile technology capable of producing a range of high-performance animal-free molecules (like those behind our US FDA GRAS Sweetener and industrially-validating Non-Animal Casein). Our innovtation, often use the power upcycled feedstocks, to enables our partners to significantly reduce environmental impact while delivering superior sensory experiences and functionalities.
With a new brand identity underscoring our commitment to technological leadership and catalysing global change, Fooditive is actively seeking visionary partners and investors. Let's co-create the future of food – sustainably, scalably, and impactfully.