Scientist - Materials
Emeryville, CA$130k - $170kfull-timePosted 2w ago
About the role
Materials scientist focused on developing biologically produced materials and their applications for Mars, with hands-on characterization and iterative design–build–test cycles to guide future development.
Responsibilities
- Develop custom fixtures, test methods, prototypes, data acquisition, and analysis workflows.
- Characterize optical, thermal, mechanical, surface, and durability properties.
- Connect material composition, processing, structure, properties, and performance.
- Conduct iterative design–build–test cycles for coatings, waxes, polymers, and structural biomaterials.
- Develop manufacturing approaches for scaling biologically produced materials from laboratory samples to mission-ready products.
Qualifications
- Training in materials science or a related field, PhD not required.
- Strong practical understanding of relationships among material composition, processing, structure, properties, and performance.
- Hands-on material characterization experience; experience with optical and thermal properties preferred.
- Experience with iterative design–build–test cycles, including setting requirements, prototyping, diagnosing failures, and updating formulations or processes.
- Experience processing raw materials into reproducible, usable forms (purification, separation, drying, formulation, casting, coating, molding, or compounding).
- Desirable: experience with biologically produced materials, downstream fermentation processing, or biopolymer recovery (e.g., PHAs); not required.
Skills
Required:Materials characterizationDesign–build–test cyclesMaterial processingCommunication
Nice to have:Biologically produced materials
Benefits
- Visa sponsorship on a case-by-case basis
- Health Insurance (medical, dental, vision) for employee and dependents
- Family leave (up to 12 weeks)
- Flexible time off policy
- Employer-matched 401(k) plan
Last updated Oct 9, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Pioneer Labs
where no microbe has gone before
Pioneer Labs is a nonprofit research nonprofit startup engineering microbes for Mars. We engineer hardy critters that perform gracefully even in the extreme conditions of space. By doing so, we aim to make biomanufacturing ubiquitous, reliable, and green — on Earth and beyond.
Pioneer SpeciesLife finds a wayWork together with natureMarshabitatsbiologyspace science
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