Research Engineer, Lab Automation
Periodic Labs, Menlo Park, CA
About the job
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
We're building an autonomous lab to speed up materials discovery, and we need someone who understands thin film research from the inside - someone who's deposited and characterized films, troubleshot instruments, and knows what makes an experiment reproducible.
As our Research Engineer, you'll work directly with scientists to understand what they're trying to learn, then translate that into the hardware setups, instrument sequences, and engineering requirements that make it possible to automate. You'll bring hands-on experimental judgment and Python skills to connect thin-film synthesis, characterization, and data collection into reliable workflows.
What You'll Do
- Work closely with bench scientists to understand experimental goals and turn them into concrete hardware and workflow requirements.
