Managing Scientist - Characterization

WHO YOU ARE

Sila Nanotechnologies seeks an experienced people manager and creative scientist with a desire to help elucidate the structure-property relationships and underlying physical models of next generation Li-ion battery materials. This position will involve using your people managing skills to inspire, facilitate, and enable a top-notch team of characterization scientists to uncover relevant and actionable knowledge and effectively share this information. Through collaborative problem solving abilities, you will also contribute scientifically to increase our understanding in areas such as intrinsic material properties, electrode morphology, material-cell integration, material-cell degradation mechanisms, and electrolyte interactions.

RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES 

• Help develop the best methods, instrumentation, systems, and workflows for doing battery materials characterization research
• Foster an environment of psychological safety to enable both creative scientific risk taking and deeply collaborative work
• Recruit, interview, hire, and onboard extraordinary new scientists to expand the team’s bandwidth, capabilities, and diversity; help to guide their career growth and, when needed, career changes
• Mentorship: offer deep thought, critical thinking, active listening, and collaborative brainstorming; set clear performance expectations and deliver regular feedback
• Work closely with the team to deliver high-quality and consistent data from semi-routine and niche analysis of materials
• Maintain and improve instrumentation by hands-on troubleshooting, repairing, modifying, gathering collaborators, and coordinating with vendors where necessary
• Identify safety hazards and work cooperatively to implement improvements
• Invest in our values and champion them as we grow

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIREMENTS

• PhD in Chemistry, Physics, Materials Science or a related discipline
• 10+ years of work experience required (post PhD)
• Demonstrated people management and team building experience, as well as technical leadership
• Deep experience with a broad range of characterization techniques that could be relevant to batteries, solid-state materials, and interfaces
• Ability to clearly communicate technical findings to diverse audiences
• Experience in collaborative problem solving: helping people share knowledge, ideas, resources, and strategies in order to solve challenging scientific problems

PHYSICAL DEMANDS AND WORKING CONDITIONS

• Wear personal protective equipment including, but not limited to, a lab coat, gloves, safety glasses, and safety toe shoes
• Pass a respirator fit test and be able to wear respiratory protection when needed
• Use a glove box and/or fume hood to prepare samples
• Operate analytical equipment at a lab bench
• Move items up to 25 lbs with the assistance of lift equipment and carts
• Move long distances (such as from building to building) and be stationary for extended periods of time
• Operate a computer and other office equipment, such as a laptop, copier/printer, etc. in a fixed location