Principal Scientist / Associate Director, Soft Materials Experimentation

Lila Sciences•Cambridge, MA

About The Position

Lila is hiring a Scientific Leader to build and run its experimental soft materials team, covering formulations, polymers, colloids, gels, emulsions, inks, adhesives, and coatings. The role involves leading a group of four scientists and growing it as the portfolio expands across formulation, rheological and scattering characterization, and polymer processing. The team's objective is to transform soft-matter problems into closed-loop autonomous workflows by defining measurement protocols, ensuring high throughput, and leveraging data for active learning and inverse design. This position requires a balance of hands-on laboratory work, team mentorship, and strategic direction setting for a multi-year growth horizon.

Requirements

PhD in Materials Science, Polymer Science, Chemical Engineering, or Chemistry with 8+ years of post-degree R&D experience, or equivalent depth built through industrial practice.
Experience leading scientific teams, either as a formal manager or a technical lead with direct responsibility for others' work.
Deep soft-matter fundamentals: phase behavior, self-assembly, rheology, interfacial phenomena, colloid and dispersion stability, transport, cure and crosslinking.
Hands-on record formulating and characterizing multicomponent systems and translating structure–property relationships into performance.
Demonstrated delivery against external milestones with industrial partners or sponsored programs.
Data-centric experimental practice: DoE, high-throughput methods, structured capture, and working with ML colleagues as a peer.
Comfort moving between strategy and bench-level troubleshooting, and leading a team split across multiple sites.

Nice To Haves

Depth in one or more application areas such as adhesives and coatings, printed electronics, energy materials, or consumer and personal care.
Experience taking formulations from lab through scale-up and manufacturability review.
Experience with robotic or automated formulation, automated characterization, or self-driving lab environments.
Python proficiency for analysis, instrument control, or workflow orchestration.
Familiarity with EHS and regulatory constraints on formulated products.

Responsibilities

Lead and grow a group of scientists spanning formulation, polymer processing, and physical characterization.
Set scientific direction, develop the team, and hire against an expanding portfolio.
Own the experimental strategy for soft materials, including the measurement stack, campaign designs, and scientific validity of published results.
Hold the team's delivery on partner-funded programs, ensuring timelines, throughput, and data quality.
Build and validate high-throughput workflows for melt and solution rheology, scattering, thermal and mechanical analysis, microfluidics, and application-specific performance testing.
Define measurement strategies that enable machine learning and inverse design, collaborating with modeling and AI colleagues.
Work with automation and engineering colleagues to transition prototype workflows into production.
Provide technical depth on new opportunities, including feasibility assessment, scoping, and customer-facing scientific engagement.
Justify and manage capital equipment and vendor relationships for the group.
Set and enforce safety expectations for chemical handling within the group.
Coordinate shared characterization capability and cross-domain campaigns with adjacent materials and chemistry groups.