Chemical or Materials Engineer/Scientist

Exponent • Seattle, WA

1d • Onsite

About The Position

Exponent is seeking a Chemical Engineer or Materials Engineer/Scientist for its Polymers and Chemistry Practice in Seattle. The role contributes to interdisciplinary projects across industries including construction materials, consumer products, energy, and infrastructure. Assignments range from litigation-related technical failure analysis to troubleshooting products during design and development. The position calls for intellectual curiosity, resourcefulness, and comfort working with incomplete or imperfect information to identify the key technical question and determine practical ways to answer it.

Work may involve laboratory testing and materials characterization, analysis of large datasets, development of code or tools to improve analytical efficiency, review of industrial processes, and review of extensive technical records. The successful candidate will have an advanced degree and practical knowledge of the physical, chemical, and mechanical behavior of macromolecules, along with experience in analytical and experimental techniques. Collaboration across Exponent practices and offices is important, and some travel is required. A long-term goal is to develop business by obtaining new projects and bringing new clients to the firm.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry, or a related field.
• Strong theoretical and practical background in macromolecules and associated chemistry and physics.
• Experience with sampling techniques and analysis of data generated by FTIR, DSC, TGA, microscopy, and related techniques.
• Experience designing and validating novel or non-standard testing approaches.
• Proficiency with Python or another programming language and an interest in using code to automate, analyze, visualize, or simplify technical work.
• Strong analytical judgment and ability to identify important questions or observations within large amounts of information.
• Curiosity and initiative, including willingness to learn new technical areas and develop new approaches when established methods are insufficient.
• Ability to contribute quickly to unfamiliar projects and enthusiasm for a wide variety of assignments.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including ability to explain complex technical subjects to nontechnical audiences.
• Ability to work effectively within interdisciplinary project teams and a strong desire to contribute.
• Strong educational and publication credentials.

Nice To Haves

• Related industrial experience.
• Experience with manufacturing processes, mechanical characterization, chromatography, and other analytical techniques.
• Industrial experience with chemical process design, management, and optimization.
• Experience managing budgets, projects, and timelines.

Responsibilities

• Conduct inspections, scientific analyses, and testing to address real-world challenges involving polymeric material performance.
• Perform root-cause analyses of failures arising during product development, process design, manufacturing, installation, and end use.
• Analyze technical data from diverse sources and develop efficient, reproducible approaches to extract useful information from large or complex datasets.
• Review and synthesize technical literature, project records, test data, process instrumentation data, and other large bodies of information to identify relevant facts and patterns.
• Convey technical findings and results to broad audiences in engineering, business, law, and industry.
• Collaborate across disciplines and take on technical challenges outside the candidate’s immediate area of expertise.
• Develop business by obtaining new projects and bringing new clients to the firm.

Benefits

• Competitive benefits and compensation and recognition programs.
• At the Associate and Senior Associate level, total compensation includes base salary, bi-weekly bonuses for high-intensity efforts, annual bonus, and a 401(k) employer contribution of 7% of base salary.
• Programs and resources to support health and well-being.
• Flexible, agile work style and working hours that support work/life balance.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree