Full-Time
Junior Lab Technician
Diffractive Labs
Autonomous AI research lab for materials discovery
No salary listed
London, UK
In Person
Bachelor's
 Academic & Institutional Research (1) |
|---|
- A bachelor's degree in a technical discipline such as materials science, physics, chemistry, or engineering, or a science T-level with a relevant specialism such as laboratory sciences.
- Practical exposure to laboratory environments, potentially gained through academic projects, industrial placements, or advanced coursework.
- Eagerness to master the operation and technical upkeep of sophisticated, research-grade instrumentation.
- Accountability regarding safety protocols and disciplined execution of established procedures.
- Organisational habits and commitment to maintaining precise, transparent experimental records.
- Operate the core instrument suite, including thin film deposition systems, high vacuum equipment, high temperature metallurgy systems, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and optical characterisation equipment.
- Perform routine and preventive maintenance and help diagnose faults before they become failures.
- Run synthesis and characterisation experiments while ensuring reproducibility and rigorous data capture.
- Support writing and maintaining standard operating procedures and risk assessments for equipment and processes.
- Manage consumables, materials inventory, and equipment readiness for the broader research team.
- Collaborate with materials scientists and machine learning researchers to design experimental runs and interpret results.
- Support integration of experimental data into digital infrastructure and artificial intelligence pipelines.
- Previous hands-on experience with scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thin film deposition, arc melting, metal grinding and polishing, or high-vacuum systems.
- Familiarity with chemicals and standard laboratory safety regulations and practices.
- Previous background or interest in a high-velocity start-up or agile research setting.
- Interest in artificial intelligence and machine learning for scientific breakthroughs and accelerated materials discovery.
Diffractive Labs is a London-based company building an AI Material Scientist, an autonomous system that discovers new materials by learning from real-world experimentation. It pairs machine learning models, including graph neural networks, with robotic lab automation, so computational predictions and physical experiments continuously inform each other in a closed discovery loop. A team of experimental scientists, computational researchers, and platform engineers runs experiments at scale, replacing manual trial-and-error. What sets Diffractive Labs apart is closing the loop between simulation and lab work, letting AI models propose materials and validate them through automated experimentation. The goal is to accelerate materials discovery and expand the pace of scientific research.
Company Size
N/A
Company Stage
N/A
Total Funding
N/A
Headquarters
N/A
Founded
N/A
Simplify's Take
What believers are saying
- Diffractive Labs publicly posted multiple technical roles in June and July 2026.
- Its website and job descriptions show continued buildout of the autonomous discovery stack.
- Reported funding near $5 million supports multi-year experimentation and hiring.
What critics are saying
- Open positions across 12 roles signal heavy burn before product revenue exists.
- The company depends on hiring scarce materials PhDs in London, slowing execution.
- If automated discovery misses commercial materials by 2027, the platform story collapses.
What makes Diffractive Labs unique
- Diffractive Labs closes the materials-discovery loop between simulation, ML, and experiments.
- Its London team hires specialists in DFT, MLIPs, synthesis, and automation.
- The company targets autonomous discovery, not incremental materials-informatics software.
Help us improve and share your feedback! Did you find this helpful?
Benefits
Flexible Work Hours
Remote Work Options
Company Equity