Product Innovation Specialist

Argonne National Laboratory•Lemont, IL

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Argonne National Laboratory is seeking a Product Innovation Specialist in the Strategic Transportation Education & Partnerships (STEP) Department. The role serves as the primary venture builder, mentor, and startup coach for the EcoCAR Innovation Challenge and adapts entrepreneurial methodologies across STEP’s advanced energy and transportation workforce portfolio. It operates at the intersection of deep-tech engineering and early-stage venture incubation, developing students with both deep engineering expertise and broad entrepreneurial capability. The role emphasizes rigorous, evidence-based customer discovery using frameworks such as NSF I-Corps and Lean Startup, moving teams away from a “build-it-first” approach. The specialist mentors 20 university teams through ongoing office hours, offline reviews, and real-time troubleshooting, guiding students through R&D commercialization and helping them become industry-ready, stakeholder-aware engineers. The position is based on-site at Argonne’s campus in Lemont, Illinois, and involves 10%–15% travel, or approximately 20–30 nights annually, concentrated around key milestone events. The selected candidate will be placed at PT2 or PT3 based on the depth and breadth of relevant knowledge, skills, and experience.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree and at least 2 years of experience in entrepreneurship, product management, engineering, or a related field for PT2.
Bachelor’s degree and at least 4 years of experience in entrepreneurship, product management, engineering, or a related field for PT3.
Experience with hypothesis-driven development, business model iteration, and structured Lean Startup methodologies.
Demonstrated ability to mentor and challenge highly technical engineering students and guide them through commercial and strategic business frameworks.
Initiative, sound judgment, organizational ability, and capacity to manage multiple concurrent activities.
Strong written and oral communication skills, including preparation of technical reports, presentations, training materials, and publications.
Operational discipline and project management skills to maintain a high-frequency coaching and evaluation tempo across 20 university teams.
Ability to work effectively across technical, programmatic, and external partnership settings.
Ability to model Argonne’s Core Values: Impact, Safety, Respect, Integrity, and Teamwork.
Ability to work on-site at Argonne’s Lemont, Illinois campus.
Willingness to travel 10%–15% (approximately 20–30 nights annually), concentrated around key milestone events.

Nice To Haves

Familiarity with the Desirability, Feasibility, Viability (DFV) framework for evaluating concepts and guiding them through evidence-based stage gates.
Technical fluency in advanced engineering sectors such as electrification, autonomy, connectivity, or systems integration to assess engineering feasibility of hardware and software concepts.
Automotive background; helpful but not required.
Direct experience in deep-tech, academic tech transfer, or hardware startup environments focused on bridging advanced R&D and commercial viability.
Experience managing student accelerators, incubators, or multi-stakeholder innovation pipelines involving university, government, and corporate partners.
Ability to connect early-stage ventures or departmental programs with external resources and industry mentors.

Responsibilities

Coach EcoCAR Innovation Challenge teams through venture building, shifting them toward problem-first, evidence-based approaches.
Train students in Lean Startup methods that uncover actual user behaviors and workflows rather than validate preconceived solutions.
Help teams define innovation spaces based on technical constraints, then use customer evidence to prioritize applications and guide product design.
Evaluate student concepts and business models, guide teams through structured stage gates, and support defensible exit strategies or Go/Pivot/Hold decisions.
Cultivate an industry sponsor cohort as an Innovation Advisory Council to advise student teams during Years 2–4 and provide venture guidance and investor connections.
Mentor students on market validation, competitive analysis, and translating technical value propositions into pre-seed pitches for industry stakeholders.
Design future problem spaces and gated venture structures for Years 2–4, and integrate industry sponsors to secure resources for student ventures.
Extend Lean Startup, customer discovery, and venture-building methods across STEP’s advanced energy and transportation portfolio.
Contribute to new programs, pilot efforts, and grant proposals aligned with STEP’s workforce mission and technology commercialization priorities.
Maintain a high-frequency coaching and evaluation schedule across 20 parallel university teams.
Work across technical, programmatic, and external partnership settings while modeling Argonne’s Core Values of Impact, Safety, Respect, Integrity, and Teamwork.