{"id":1190040,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation","title":"Principal Scientist / Associate Director, Soft Materials Experimentation","company":{"id":65163,"name":"Lila Sciences","domain":"lila.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/lila-ai","size_band":"201-500","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Greenhouse","truth_index":{"grade":"A","score":88,"open_postings":47,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.277,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":70,"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":"head","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Cambridge, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":156000,"max":214000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":214000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":8,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T15:06:04Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-24","last_verified_at":"2026-10-20T12:04:59Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":26,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":26},"description":"Your Impact at LILA\nLila is hiring a Scientific Leader to build and run our experimental soft materials team, covering formulations, polymers, colloids, gels, emulsions, inks, adhesives, and coatings. You will take on a group of four scientists and grow it as the portfolio expands across formulation, rheological and scattering characterization, and polymer processing. The team turns soft-matter problems into closed-loop autonomous workflows: defining what gets measured, how it gets measured at throughput, and how the resulting data supports active learning and inverse design. The work asks you to stay close to the bench while mentoring a growing team and setting its direction over a multi-year growth horizon.\nWhat You'll Be Building\nLead and grow a group of scientists spanning formulation, polymer processing, and physical characterization; set scientific direction, develop the team, and hire against an expanding portfolio\nOwn the experimental strategy for soft materials - the measurement stack, the campaign designs, and the scientific validity of what the group publishes internally and to partners\nHold your team's delivery on partner-funded programs alongside the technical program managers who own the programs themselves, setting the standard on timelines, throughput, and data quality\nBuild and validate high-throughput workflows spanning melt and solution rheology, scattering, thermal and mechanical analysis, microfluidics, and application-specific performance testing\nDefine the measurement strategies that make machine learning and inverse design tractable, and partner with modeling and AI colleagues to close the loop from proposed candidate to validated formulation\nWork with automation and engineering colleagues to move prototype workflows into production with reliable instrument control, structured data capture, and end-to-end robotics\nProvide technical depth on new opportunities: feasibility assessment, scoping, and customer-facing scientific engagement\nJustify and manage capital equipment and vendor relationships for the group; set the expectation on safe handling for its chemical footprint and hold the group to it\nCoordinate shared characterization capability and cross-domain campaigns with adjacent materials and chemistry groups\nWhat You'll Need to Succeed\nPhD in Materials Science, Polymer Science, Chemical Engineering, or Chemistry with 8+ years of post-degree R&D experience, or equivalent depth built through industrial practice\nExperience leading scientific teams, whether as a formal manager or as a technical lead with direct responsibility for others' work\nDeep soft-matter fundamentals: phase behavior, self-assembly, rheology, interfacial phenomena, colloid and dispersion stability, transport, cure and crosslinking\nHands-on record formulating and characterizing multicomponent systems and translating structure-property relationships into performance\nDemonstrated delivery against external milestones with industrial partners or sponsored programs\nData-centric experimental practice: DoE, high-throughput methods, structured capture, and working with ML colleagues as a peer rather than a customer\nComfort moving between strategy and bench-level troubleshooting, and leading a team split across multiple sites\nBonus Points For\nDepth in one or more application areas such as adhesives and coatings, printed electronics, energy materials, or consumer and personal care\nExperience taking formulations from lab through scale-up and manufacturability review\nRobotic or automated formulation, automated characterization, or self-driving lab environments\nPython proficiency for analysis, instrument control, or workflow orchestration\nFamiliarity with EHS and regulatory constraints on formulated products\nCompensation\nWe offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.\nU.S. Benefits. Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.\nInternational Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.\nExpected Base Salary Range\n$156,000—$214,000 USD\nAbout LILA\nLila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.\nLILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.\nGuided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.\nWe’re All In\nLila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.\nInformation you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.\nA Note to Agencies\nLila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6383,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":8,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Equity","Flexible time off","Parental leave"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Materials Science & Nanotechnology","Laboratory & Pharmaceutical Robotics","AI Research Labs","AI for Science"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-24T16:21:42Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":81,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.896,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":25,"expected_fill_days":70,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-20T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":214000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-20T15:59:32Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":18203,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-21T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":65163},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=65163"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Flila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Flila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Flila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/lila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flila-sciences-principal-scientist-associate-director-soft-materials-experimentation"}]}