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Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company supplying critical minerals for modern energy, AI, and defense technologies. They are reimagining the minerals supply chain through advanced software, automation, and data-driven decision-making.
You will build and lead the analytical laboratory supporting the DSM Pilot Plant in Houston from the ground up. The DSM pilot couples high-temperature pyrometallurgical processing with downstream hydrometallurgical refining, requiring the laboratory to handle feeds, calcines, slags, dusts, leach solutions, loaded and stripped organics, precipitates, products, and effluent.
Key responsibilities include:
**Laboratory Leadership & Operations**
- Lead daily laboratory operations supporting pilot plant campaigns, process development, and product qualification
- Specify, purchase, install, and commission analytical instrumentation and sample preparation equipment; manage capital and operating budgets
- Supervise, mentor, and develop analytical chemists and technicians; handle hiring, training, qualification records, scheduling, and performance reviews
**Analytical Program Ownership**
- Oversee analytical testing using ICP-OES, ICP-MS, XRF, XRD, titration, ion chromatography, and other relevant techniques
- Own sample preparation for difficult mineral matrices including crushing, pulverizing, splitting, drying, loss on ignition, acid digestion, and fusion of refractory materials
- Establish, validate, and continuously improve analytical methods for high-matrix solutions such as concentrated leach liquors, high-salt streams, and organic phases from solvent extraction
- Support pyrometallurgical characterization including elemental assay of feeds, calcines, slags, dusts, and residues; moisture, LOI, carbon and sulfur analysis; and particle size analysis
- Manage external and umpire laboratory relationships for methods held outside the site
- Provide analytical inputs to mass balance and metallurgical accounting; work with process engineers to resolve balance closure issues
**Quality, Data & Systems**
- Develop and enforce laboratory SOPs, QA/QC protocols, and data validation procedures including certified reference materials, duplicates, spikes, blanks, and control charting
- Collaborate on sampling-point design and validation covering location, sampler type, frequency, and sample handling
- Own detection limits, precision and accuracy targets, and documented uncertainty for every reported method
- Implement and administer a laboratory information management system or equivalent digital data workflow, including sample chain of custody
- Set and hold turnaround time commitments by priority tier to ensure operations receives time-critical results fast enough to act
- Maintain and oversee calibration, preventive maintenance, and troubleshooting of analytical instrumentation; manage service contracts and vendor relationships
- Manage laboratory inventory including consumables, gases, standards, and reagents
**Safety & Compliance**
- Ensure compliance with safety regulations, chemical hygiene plan, and environmental requirements
- Own safe handling, storage, and segregation of concentrated acids, bases, flammable solvents, and hazardous samples; manage fume hood performance and emergency equipment readiness
- Manage laboratory waste characterization, accumulation, and disposal in line with regulatory requirements
- Lead laboratory incident investigation and corrective action; participate in site hazard reviews
**Requirements**
- Bachelor or Master degree in Chemistry, Metallurgy, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or related field
- 8+ years of hands-on analytical laboratory experience, including significant experience with ICP-OES, ICP-MS, and XRF methods
- 3+ years managing laboratory personnel or leading analytical teams
- Demonstrated experience analyzing both solids and solutions from mineral processing or metallurgical operations, including sample preparation of refractory matrices by acid digestion and fusion
- Strong understanding of inorganic chemistry, trace element analysis, matrix and interference effects, spectral corrections, and method validation
- Experience supporting both high-temperature and wet chemical process streams strongly preferred, including slags, calcines, dusts, leach solutions, and solvent extraction phases
- Demonstrated experience implementing QA/QC systems and maintaining data integrity standards in a production or pilot support environment
- Experience standing up a new laboratory or significantly expanding one, including instrument selection, installation, and qualification
- Experience implementing or administering a LIMS or comparable digital data workflow
- Experience in minerals processing, metallurgy, chemicals, specialty materials, or similar industrial environment
- Working knowledge of OSHA laboratory standards, chemical hygiene requirements, hazardous waste handling, and shipping of regulated samples
- Strong organizational skills and ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced startup environment
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills; ability to present analytical limitations and uncertainty clearly to engineers and operators
