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Salary: USD 172,000 - 218,000 / annual
Sila Nanotechnologies is a next-generation battery materials company developing advanced lithium-ion battery materials to accelerate the global transition to clean energy. The company engineers and manufactures breakthrough battery materials that increase energy density while reducing size and weight, enabling smaller, more powerful batteries for consumer devices and electric vehicles.
As a Senior Staff Engineer on the R&D&E Modeling team, you will bridge physical chemistry, advanced characterization, and computational modeling to accelerate the development of high-performance lithium-ion battery materials and cells. You are a cross-functional problem solver who thrives at the intersection of wet-lab characterization and high-performance computing, leveraging advanced models to turn raw empirical and theoretical data into actionable material and cell design rules.
Key Responsibilities:
- Leverage standard and advanced characterization methods (BET, TGA, Raman, SEM, XAS, XPS, EPR) alongside computational chemistry tools (DFT, electronic structure modeling via Orca, Gaussian, or Q-Chem, and numerical solvers) to quantify correlations between material properties and electrochemical performance of Li-ion battery active materials and coproducts.
- Develop and operationalize electrochemical tests at the half and full cell level to extract material-level kinetics and physics for Li-ion active materials.
- Build and maintain automated data processing, simulation, and modeling workflows using Linux command-line tools, bash scripting, and Python for both material and cell-level modeling.
- Translate computational insights into physical material design improvements while guiding internal teams and external customers on cell-level design optimization for maximum power and energy efficiency.
- Leverage empirical historical datasets to create model scenarios to inform design opportunities for energy-to-power differentiation.
- Work closely with synthesis, formulation, and commercial teams to quantify property-performance relationships and drive technological differentiation.
The role involves both laboratory work (wearing PPE, operating specialized analytical instrumentation and gloveboxes) and computational work in office settings.
Requirements:
- Ph.D. in Chemistry, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or a related physical science discipline.
- Deep experience integrating quantum chemistry methods (DFT, electronic structure calculations) with experimental materials characterization.
- Deep experience in physics-based model development and application for lithium-ion batteries.
- High proficiency in Linux environments, CLI tools, bash scripting, Python, and numerical solvers for physical chemistry workflows.
- Hands-on background in electrochemistry for lithium-ion batteries or related field.
- Solid grasp of standard (BET, TGA, Raman, SEM) and advanced spectroscopic/synchrotron techniques (XAS, XPS, EPR) applied to silicon or carbon-based active materials.
