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XRD Facility Manager

Periodic Labs· Science
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Menlo Park, CA$200k - $275kFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

We are looking for an experienced diffraction specialist to manage Periodic Labs’ X-ray diffraction facility, including instrument alignment, maintenance, user training, documentation, and safety. The role involves commissioning new instruments, ensuring data and metadata quality, and working with software to standardize data capture.

Responsibilities

  • Instrument alignment, calibration, configuration control, and uptime across the facility, including the criteria used to decide whether an instrument is ready for use.
  • Reference standards and quality control: maintain house standards and a regular QC schedule so that the same standard gives consistent results across instruments
  • Difficult measurements: non-routine geometries, weakly scattering or air-sensitive samples, thin films, and non-ambient stages, with attention to distinguishing instrument artifacts from real effects.
  • Maintenance and repair: troubleshooting and preventive maintenance; coordination of service contracts and vendor visits when needed.
  • Commissioning new instruments: site preparation, acceptance testing, and comparison against existing instruments.
  • User training: train and certify scientists and technicians, review early runs, and provide support.
  • Documentation and data: maintain SOPs, measurement recipes, and data-reduction conventions; ensure raw data, instrument state, calibration status, and sample metadata are recorded consistently and in a structured format.
  • Radiation safety: X-ray equipment registration and compliance, interlock testing, surveys, along with compressed gas and cryogen handling for non-ambient stages.

Qualifications

  • 5+ years of hands-on experience operating and maintaining X-ray diffractometers in a university shared facility, national lab, analytical services lab, industrial R&D lab, or at an instrument vendor.
  • Strong XRD background across powder, thin-film, and capillary/transmission work. Proficient in phase identification, Rietveld refinement, and quantitative analysis.
  • Experience maintaining several instruments, ideally from more than one vendor. Comfortable troubleshooting hardware and judging when to repair versus call for service.
  • Careful documentation habits; treats metadata as part of the measurement.
  • Able to support many users in a busy lab while maintaining good practice.
  • PhD in materials science, physics, chemistry, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
  • Preferred: experience managing a shared user facility or commercial XRD lab, automation, or other materials characterization techniques.

Skills

Required:X-ray diffraction (XRD) operation and maintenanceCalibration and alignmentQuality control and reference standardsData management and metadata
Last updated Sep 16, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

About Periodic Labs

From bits to atoms.

Periodic Labs is an artificial intelligence research company pioneering the next leap in scientific discovery. We operate at the intersection of machine learning and scientific experimentation under the thesis that that true understanding of the universe is only possible by interacting and experimenting on it.

artificial intelligencescientific discoverymachine learningscientific experimentation
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