{"id":924415,"url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization","title":"Scientist II / Senior Scientist, Electron Diffraction Characterization","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":89,"open_postings":49,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":0.224,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":70,"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":"senior","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":128000,"max":198000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":198000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-15T00:40:35Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-15","last_verified_at":"2026-10-13T12:26:57Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":28,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":28},"description":"Your Impact at LILA\nLila Sciences is seeking a Scientist II / Senior Scientist, Electron Diffraction Characterization to join the Materials Science team within the Autonomous Science Platform. The Autonomous Science Platform combines experimental science, automation, AI, and software to accelerate materials discovery. This role turns electron diffraction and microstructure measurements into trusted, machine-readable data that supports crystal structure determination, materials characterization, automated workflows, and model development.\nYou will lead method development, validation, and operation for electron diffraction characterization workflows, with emphasis on micro-ED and/or EBSD. You will prepare samples, run measurements, interpret diffraction and microstructure data, troubleshoot data-quality issues, and establish workflows that make characterization outputs accurate, reproducible, and fit for purpose.\nYou will also translate electron diffraction expertise into scalable analyzer pipelines. Partnering with ML, software, automation, and experimental teams, you will define metadata, quality-control checks, provenance, and analysis workflows that make diffraction data reliable, traceable, and useful at scale.\nThe ideal candidate combines deep hands-on expertise in electron diffraction characterization with strong scientific judgment and a commitment to high-quality data. They can operate at the instrument, interpret complex structural and microstructural outputs, and help build the analytical infrastructure needed to scale characterization across Lila’s platform.\nWhat You'll Be Building\nLead micro-ED and other electron microscopy characterization workflows for materials discovery programs.\nDevelop methods for crystal structure determination and microstructure analysis.\nPrepare samples, run measurements, interpret data, and troubleshoot quality issues.\nDefine calibration, validation, QC, and reproducibility standards for electron diffraction workflows.\nBuild structured, traceable diffraction outputs for downstream analysis and modeling.\nPartner with ML, software, automation, and experimental teams on analyzer pipelines.\nTranslate project needs into fit-for-purpose characterization methods and analysis plans.\nWhat You'll Need to Succeed\nPhD in Materials Science, Chemistry, Physics, Applied Physics, Engineering, or a related field, or M.S. with equivalent hands-on characterization experience.\nHands-on expertise in SEM and TEM including advanced diffraction analysis such as micro-ED.\nStrong understanding of diffraction principles, crystallography, crystal structure determination, and microstructure analysis.\nExperience preparing samples, validating methods, interpreting diffraction data, and troubleshooting workflow issues.\nAbility to translate characterization workflows into reliable, structured, machine-readable data.\nExperience collaborating across scientific, ML, software, automation, or data teams.\nClear communication skills for documenting methods, explaining results, and driving cross-functional decisions.\nBonus Points For\nExperience with other EM techniques including EBSD, 4D-STEM is a plus.\nFamiliarity with automated or high-throughput characterization workflows.\nProficiency with Python or similar tools for scientific data analysis.\nExperience integrating instrument data with ML-ready datasets or analyzer workflows.\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$128,000—$198,000 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":6014,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"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":"2026-09-15T05:18:50Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":79,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.881,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":28,"expected_fill_days":70,"reasons":["conf:0","velocity","win:mid","comp:brand"],"computed_at":"2026-10-13T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":198000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/lila-sciences-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-13T14:51:30Z","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":22728,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-14T00:00:00Z"}},"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-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization"},{"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-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization"},{"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-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization"},{"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-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flila-sciences-scientist-ii-senior-scientist-electron-diffraction-characterization"}]}