About us

Spore.Bio is a deeptech start-up born in 2023, building a new paradigm in quality control for Food & Beverage, Cosmetics and Pharmaceutical factories.

After spending a lot of time in factory environments, we saw the pain it was to make sure products were safe. Traditional quality control has heavy constraints and long waiting times. To change that, we decided to build Spore.Bio, a new generation of microbiological testing.

Our team is dedicated to bringing technology and developing a cutting-edge solution, based on advanced optical and deep-learning technologies, to detect microbial contamination in about 10 minutes.

The role

What if the hardest part of microbiology wasn’t finding the microbes, but getting the product out of the way? Join Spore.Bio for 6 months in Paris and turn “impossible” samples into readable ones.

Before our platform can read a sample, the product has to pass through a membrane. Some products don’t. Particles, fats or proteins clog the membrane, or cover it so densely that microorganisms can no longer be told apart from the product. Your mission is to explore ways to remove these product components while keeping the microorganisms initially present. This is an exploratory project: we’ll define its exact scope with you before you arrive. It may involve screening treatments as well as evaluating new sample-preparation tools. You’ll work closely with our Pretreatment Lead, carry out experiments at the bench, record them carefully and share your results with the team.

What you’ll do

• State of the art: review the literature and standards on preparing difficult samples, and propose approaches to test.

• Screening: design and run experiments across different product types, test many conditions in a structured way and narrow them down to the most promising.

• Technology evaluation: get new sample-preparation tools and instruments running quickly, test them fairly and compare them with our current workflow.

• Performance: measure filterability and microbial recovery against proper controls. Find sources of loss and variability, and fix them.

• Documentation: keep a thorough lab notebook and present your results to the team.

• Integration: share what you learnt with other teams.

About you

• Final-year Master’s or Engineering School student in Microbiology, Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Bioprocess Engineering (including downstream processing) or a related field.

• Hands-on experience from a previous internship or lab project related to microbiology (bacterial culture, CFU counting etc.)

• You understand what keeps a microbial cell intact and what damages it, and you check it with the right controls.

• Experience with any of the following is a plus: enzymes, detergents or surfactants, cell lysis, filtration or other separation techniques, design of experiments.

• At ease with new instruments: you pick up a device or a protocol quickly and adapt it to new samples.

• Clear communicator: you can present results to the team and discuss them with technical experts outside the company.

• You work in a rigorous, organized way: well-planned experiments with proper controls, and a lab notebook anyone could reproduce.

• Curious, autonomous and comfortable with open problems.

• English required, French a plus.

We don’t expect you to know everything on day one. Curiosity and drive matter more.

Why join ?

Real technologies for a real product, at the intersection of microbiology and optical detection. You’ll get direct mentoring and hands-on training, and your results will shape how our platform handles new types of products. We hire for the long term: this internship can lead to a permanent position (CDI) for the right person.

Practical details

• Duration: 6 months, starting February 2027. This is an end-of-studies internship (stage de fin d’études) under a convention de stage.

• Location: Paris, on-site

Perks: workspace equipment budget, Gymlib, Alan health insurance, Swile card, quarterly team gatherings.

Recruitment process

1. Fit interview with the hiring manager (~30 min)

2. Technical discussion (~60 min)

3. On-site in Paris: Culture-fit conversation with a Spore.Bio collaborator outside the team (~30 min) / meet the founders, visit the lab, see the platform in action (~60 min)