Staff Materials Engineer
About The Position
The Staff Materials Engineer will lead complex materials development and quality initiatives that directly impact product reliability, manufacturability, and supplier readiness. This role combines deep technical expertise in ceramic materials with ownership of quality systems, process control strategies, supplier qualification, and scale-up readiness. This experienced Materials Engineer will operate as a technical leader across R&D, manufacturing, and supplier organizations, ensuring that materials, processes, and inspection methodologies consistently produce reliable outcomes. Beyond project execution, this role establishes standards, develops quality frameworks, mentors engineers, and drives continuous improvement across the organization. This position is particularly suited for an engineer with significant experience in ceramic manufacturing, quality assurance, process control, failure analysis, and supplier qualification.
Requirements
- MS in Ceramics Engineering, Materials Science, or similar discipline
- 5–10 years relevant experience with hands on formulations, characterization, and analysis
Nice To Haves
- PhD in Ceramics Engineering, Materials Science, or similar discipline
- Deep Expertise in ceramic processing, sintering, powder technology, and high-temperature materials.
- Demonstrated experience implementing QA/QC systems in ceramic or refractory manufacturing environments.
- Strong understanding of SPC, DOE, process capability studies, MSA, and quality engineering tools.
- Expertise in failure analysis using SEM, XRD, microscopy, thermal analysis, and mechanical testing.
- Experience with supplier qualification and manufacturing scale-up.
- Ability to translate laboratory findings into robust production controls.
Responsibilities
- Lead efforts around material development with desired electro/thermo-physical properties
- Conceive and implement material testing and qualification strategies
- Establish QA/QC methodologies for ceramic materials, components, and manufacturing processes.
- Develop inspection plans, control plans, acceptance criteria, and statistical process control methodologies.
- Lead root-cause investigations for material failures, process deviations, yield losses, and field performance issues.
- Develop incoming, in-process, and final inspection strategies for ceramic products.
- Drive implementation of quality systems with internal teams and external manufacturing partners.
- Define critical-to-quality (CTQ) characteristics and process capability targets.
- Lead qualification and auditing of ceramic suppliers and contract manufacturers.
- Develop supplier scorecards and quality metrics.
- Review and approve manufacturing process changes, material substitutions, and corrective actions.
- Partner with suppliers to improve yield, consistency, and throughput.
- Lead investigations involving cracking, creep, thermal shock, dimensional instability, conductivity drift, and microstructural degradation.
- Correlate microstructure, processing history, and operating conditions with component performance.
- Develop accelerated life testing methodologies and reliability validation plans.
- Define quality requirements for pilot and commercial-scale manufacturing.
- Identify manufacturing risks before scale-up and implement mitigation plans.
- Drive process capability improvements and manufacturing readiness assessments.
Benefits
- equity
- benefits
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Senior
