Lead R&D Scientist - AeroShield Materials, Inc.

Why AeroShield might be great for you

AeroShield Materials is a collaborative team of 23 people bound by a mission to deliver innovative new materials to make our lives more sustainable and comfortable. Every year in the US, windows and doors lose an estimated $40 billion in thermal energy. We are developing super-insulating, transparent aerogel inserts for windows to bring state-of-the-art thermal comfort and energy efficiency into homes at an affordable price.

As part of AeroShield, you would join an agile, passionate, and talented team focusing on realizing our mission in a sustainable, ethical, and innovative way.

What we are looking for in a Lead R&D Scientist

The Lead R&D scientist leads AeroShield’s R&D team and efforts related to material and process formulation changes to support manufacturing scaleup and modifying material properties to improve performance in applications. They monitor the R&D roadmap and they work closely with the CTO to ensure AeroShield meets R&D goals.

The ideal candidate will be familiar with chemistry, materials science & engineering, and structure-function relationships and be ready to get hands-on with our ground-breaking material. We seek a dynamic researcher or engineer to lead exploration of our chemical formulations as we build on laboratory research to translate material and process developments to industrial scale production. Working together with our team, this role will help to optimize our material, create scalable and economic production, and develop a safe and sustainable product.

The Lead R&D scientist is highly organized, has experience with lean project management practices, and is excellent at prioritization. They also evaluate potential material and process changes for long term benefits that match AeroShield’s larger goals. They can develop efficient and targeted design of experiments to quickly understand potential of material and process changes, and they can provide guidance on the proper tools to evaluate said changes.

Our mission is supported directly through a positive and inclusive team culture. We are looking for someone who wants to be part of continuously enhancing this culture by playing an active role as the company grows. This person should embody the three core values of AeroShield and encourage others to act in alignment with our mission and these values: Value People and Persons, Act Sustainably, Understand & Improve. This role is important in developing AeroShield’s R&D team, and you will use your experience and skills to form, inspire, and motivate a diverse and cohesive team of high performers.

Responsibilities of this position include: 

• Develop technical roadmap with R&D goals and timelines, growing AeroShield’s capabilities to support business goals
• Lead and manage AeroShield’s R&D team, coordinating with CTO to ensure alignment with overall company objectives and focusing on a strong combination of performance and fostering a strong team culture.
• Identify grant solicitations that are aligned with AeroShield’s goals, applying for funding, leading execution, and preparing required reports
• Mostly focus on supervising R&D activities, but also jump in and support key experiments with the R&D team if needed
• Follow technical innovations from universities and other companies that are related to AeroShield’s R&D roadmap using primary literature research, press releases, information from conferences, and AeroShield’s network of advisors
• Lead preparation of materials for patent filings and proactively works with CTO and IP counsel to strengthen AeroShield’s IP position
• Develop key metrics for monitoring material and process development
• Set up team so it interfaces well with other teams at AeroShield in terms of expertise/technical ability, but also culture and overall impact on AeroShield as an organization

This role includes a combination of tasks that can be done remotely, work that needs to be done on-site, and in-person meetings with on-site team members. We expect that a typical week consists of 3-5 days on-site. AeroShield has recently relocated to a brand-new pilot facility to enhance our prototyping and low-volume production capabilities in Waltham, MA.

Qualifications:

Many great team members do not fit a “standard blueprint”. Even if you do not fit all aspects listed below, but feel that you can contribute to AeroShield’s team, please do not hesitate to apply or to reach out with questions. Great candidates for this role enjoy learning quickly, are excited about new technologies, and possess a technical background through school and work experience.

• PhD or Masters level scientist/engineer with deep understanding of AeroShield’s technology (or ability to catch up quickly and be an expert soon)
• Strong understanding of chemistry, materials science & engineering, and structure-function relationships. Interest in following new developments from academia and other companies
• Experienced and skilled at leading a high performing R&D team, good at building trust, motivating, and defining ambitious but achievable goals with the team.
• Startup experience in time-frame between AeroShield’s current stage and startups closing Series B
• Experience developing technical roadmaps in a startup environment
• Strong project management skills and experience working with many stakeholders to deliver on a project
• Strong interpersonal skills including the ability to listen, distill information, consult, and suggest new approaches
• Knowledge of data management tools and statistical process control as well as data interpretation and presentation
• Experience identifying, applying for, and managing grants
• Experience preparing, filing, and maintaining patent applications with support from IP counsel

Bonus skills:

• R&D experience working with organosilane chemistry

How to Apply

Please submit your resume via our career portal at: https://careers.jobscore.com/careers/aeroshieldmaterialsinc

Additionally, please include a few sentences or paragraphs about why you are interested in this role and why it looks like a good fit for you. This does not need to be a cover letter or anything formal, we just want to see what excites you about working at AeroShield!

Contact for questions: Kyle Wilke

About AeroShield

AeroShield manufactures a super-insulating nanoporous form of glass for energy efficient windows. Based on silica aerogel technology, AeroShield is more transparent than glass and twice as insulating as air, enabling windows that are 50% more energy efficient and cost-effective, with the potential to save billions of dollars in energy. See www.aeroshield.tech and for more details.