Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Materials
Join Periodic Labs as a materials scientist to automate research and improve data for LLM agents in a hybrid role.
Posted by employer 1 week ago
First seen on Joblaze 1 week ago
Last verified on the company career page 1 day ago
Skills & Technologies
AI in the day-to-day
We are automating scientific research in materials discovery using LLMs.
Requirements
- Experience
- 4+ years
- Education
- PhD
- Visa
- Sponsorship available
Benefits
Joblaze summary
In this role at Periodic Labs, the Research Scientist/Engineer focuses on automating materials discovery by collaborating with experimental and computational scientists to address research challenges. The position requires a strong background in materials science, particularly in understanding the nuances of data representation and metadata relevant to characterization techniques. Ideal candidates will have at least four years of experience in the field, along with a PhD or equivalent industry experience. This hybrid role emphasizes both research and infrastructure, making it suitable for those who thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment.
Joblaze insights
- Listed 9 days ago on Joblaze — tracked directly from Periodic Labs's career page.
- Periodic Labs has 29 other open roles including Don't See Your Role? Apply Here!, Computational Scientist, Differentiable Physics, Environmental Health and Safety.
- 5141 active AI/ML roles on Joblaze right now.
- 148 active Data Engineering roles on Joblaze right now.
- 52 active Materials Science roles on Joblaze right now.
- Salary band is above the typical range for AI/ML roles (median ~$188,000).
- Pays more than 80% of the 2234 salaried AI/ML roles we track (median $180,000). See AI/ML salary trends
Quick facts
- Is the Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Materials role remote?
- It's hybrid — Periodic Labs expects some on-site time in Menlo Park, CA.
- What's the salary range?
- Periodic Labs lists $250,000–$350,000 for this role.
- How much experience is required?
- At least 4 years of relevant experience for this Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Materials role.
- Where is the role based?
- Periodic Labs is hiring for this position in Menlo Park, CA.
- What's the tech stack?
- Joblaze extracted these technologies from the posting: AI/ML, Data Engineering, Materials Science.
- Does Periodic Labs sponsor work visas for this role?
- Yes — the posting indicates visa sponsorship is available for the right candidate.
- What seniority level is this role?
- Periodic Labs targets senior candidates for this position.
- Is this full-time or contract?
- Full-time for this Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Materials role at Periodic Labs.
From the original posting
About Periodic Labs
We're an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and an insatiable drive to push the boundaries of what's scientifically possible.
About the Role
At Periodic Labs, we are automating scientific research in materials discovery; the data we collect, and how we represent it, is what makes this possible. We are hiring a materials scientist to work across the entire process: to find where our agents and data fail, and to fix those failures at the source. This is a hybrid research and infrastructure role. Roughly half your time will be spent working directly with our experimental and computational scientists, building agents and tools that solve active research problems. The other half will be spent improving the data those agents depend on.
This role requires domain depth, not just data engineering skill. You need to know, for example, what metadata actually matters for a given characterization technique. The research half of the role keeps you grounded in the problems we are actually using LLMs to solve, so the schemas you build serve real research rather than an abstraction of it. The work demands attention to detail and a willingness to get into the weeds: to meticulously read, understand, and improve our data. You'll be as much a materials scientist doing research as the person who makes our agentic harness actually work.
What You'll Do
Work directly with lab scientists and the computational team on active research problems, staying close to the actual bottlenecks LLM agents are meant to solve.
Investigate agent traces to identify data errors and agentic failure modes, and eliminate them at the source.
Restructure and re-architect our materials databases (lab experiments, characterization data, computations) around how LLM agents actually reason and fail, not just around human readability. Draw on domain expertise about how to represent the data and what metadata matters.
Work with the hardware and automation teams to make data collection more robust.
Build research software for lab environments, translating scientific requirements into working tools.
Distill what you learn into evaluations that measure agent performance.
Mechanics
Minimum experience: 4+ years of research or industry experience in experimental or computational materials science and working with data at scale.
Minimum education: PhD in Materials Science, Chemistry, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
Location: Menlo Park, CA (Soon: San Francisco, too)
Compensation: $250,000-350,000 + equity
Visa sponsorship: Yes, we sponsor visas.