{"id":4042034,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations","title":"Research Scientist, Soft Matter Simulations","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":85,"open_postings":38,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.395,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":85,"computed_at":"2026-11-10T06:52:35Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":null,"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","San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":176000,"max":304000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":304000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"HPC","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false},{"name":"C++","optional":true},{"name":"Fortran","optional":true},{"name":"JAX","optional":true},{"name":"PyTorch","optional":true},{"name":"Rust","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-11-10T21:45:30Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-11-10","last_verified_at":"2026-11-10T22:30:23Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":0,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":0},"description":"Your Impact at LILA\nYour role will involve applying soft matter physics and molecular simulation expertise to accelerate the discovery, optimization, and understanding of complex soft matter systems. You will use coarse-grained and atomistic modeling, mesoscale simulation, analytical theory, and agentic AI systems to investigate polymers, colloids, surfactants, gels, liquid crystals, and formulated fluid systems with direct relevance to commercial applications.\nYou will work at the intersection of physics-based simulation, AI/ML, and autonomous scientific workflows. The focus is on using computational insight to identify promising formulations and material compositions, explain structure-property relationships, guide optimization campaigns, and help agents reason over simulation and experimental data in scientifically grounded ways. Desired simulation expertise covers atomistic and coarse-grained molecular dynamics, mesoscale approaches such as dissipative particle dynamics, Monte Carlo sampling, and analytical theory including self-consistent field theory, field theoretic simulation, and liquid state theory.\nThis is a hands-on research role for someone who can connect deep soft matter and molecular simulation expertise with software development and practical scientific impact. You will collaborate with computational scientists, AI researchers, software engineers, and experimental teams to turn simulations, models, and scientific reasoning into robust software, agentic frameworks, and closed-loop scientific workflows.\nWhat You'll Be Building\nImplement, extend, and deploy atomistic, coarse-grained, and mesoscale simulation capabilities for soft matter systems, including MD, DPD, SCFT, Monte Carlo, and liquid state theory\nEngineer simulation software with modern scientific libraries, emphasizing testing, modularity, and reproducibility at scale on HPC and cloud infrastructure\nTranslate simulation outputs into descriptors and datasets for ML models, and build predictive models to guide formulation selection and optimization\nDevelop and deploy agentic AI systems that leverage simulation capabilities for autonomous scientific discovery and closed-loop experimentation\nCommunicate physical insights, model limitations, and recommendations to computational, ML, and experimental collaborators\nWhat You'll Need to Succeed\nPhD in chemical engineering, physics, materials science, chemistry, or a related field (or master's with equivalent experience)\nStrong background in soft matter physics covering polymers, colloids, surfactants, gels, or liquid crystals, with hands-on expertise in atomistic and coarse-grained MD\nWorking knowledge of at least two of: DPD or other mesoscale methods, Monte Carlo, SCFT, field theoretic simulation, or liquid state theory\nStrong Python scientific software development skills; fluency with modern practices including version control, testing, code review, and packaging\nExperience running and automating simulations at scale on HPC or cloud, and integrating computational predictions into experimental or closed-loop optimization workflows\nGood familiarity with agentic AI systems, autonomous scientific workflows, or simulation-aware agents\nBonus Points For\nExperience with a compiled language (C++, Rust, or Fortran) for performance-critical simulation code, or GPU acceleration via JAX or PyTorch\nContributions to open source simulation packages such as LAMMPS, HOOMD-blue, GROMACS, or OpenMM\nExperience developing ML potentials or applying AI/ML to soft matter simulation data and molecular property prediction\nExperience building agents that reason over or orchestrate simulation workflows, or coupling simulation to active learning and Bayesian optimization pipelines\nPublication record in soft matter theory and simulation\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$176,000—$304,000 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":6421,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"master","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":"2026-11-10T22:30:23Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"adverts_offering_sponsorship_24m":0,"sanctioned_now":false,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 29","filings_12m":29,"filings_prev_12m":4,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":157500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-11-10T11:34:35+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":9}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":85,"reasons":["conf:4","win:early","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-11-11T02:34:28Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":304000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-11T02:34:28Z","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":795,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-12T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01,"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-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":2,"usd":0.2},"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-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.1,"usd":0.01},"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-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations"},{"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-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flila-sciences-research-scientist-soft-matter-simulations"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":4042034}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"lila.ai","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":4042034},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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