Scientist 2/Senior Scientist - Solid-State Materials

Your Impact at LILA

As a Scientist II/Senior Scientist on the Vacuum Synthesis team at Lila Sciences, you will advance the design and synthesis of functional inorganic solid-state materials in support of Lila's autonomous science platform. You will design and execute multi-step preparations across diverse chemical systems, turning phase-diagram and crystal-chemistry reasoning into prioritized synthesis pathways and experimental feedback. You will partner with other synthetic materials scientists, characterization scientists, ML researchers, and systems engineers to close the synthesis-characterization-modeling loop and accelerate Lila's path to scientific superintelligence in functional materials.

What You'll Be Building

• Design and execute synthesis campaigns across multiple chemical systems and structure families, drawing on the breadth of solid-state preparative chemistry (melt routes, flux, vapor transport, soft-chemical, topochemical, single-crystal growth, and unconventional or high-pressure environments as the target phase demands).
• Translate phase-diagram, crystal-chemistry, and structure-property reasoning into concrete, prioritized synthesis pathways for novel functional inorganic compounds.
• Access metastable and kinetically trapped phases through appropriate low-temperature and soft-chemical routes.
• Work with the characterization team to develop routine and specialized structural characterization workflows (powder XRD, phase ID, refinement) for materials identification and quality control.
• Take synthesized materials through to functional property screening (magnetic, transport, optical, or related) in partnership with the characterization team and use the resulting data to refine target selection and synthesis design.
• Partner with materials simulation scientists, ML researchers, and systems engineers to integrate synthesis outputs into closed-loop, AI-guided experimental workflows.
• Develop and document robust protocols for air- and moisture-sensitive precursors, controlled-atmosphere processing, and post-synthetic workup in a highly automated lab environment.
• Maintain rigorous laboratory records and uphold safety and regulatory standards.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• PhD in Solid-State Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Materials Science, or a related field, with 1–5 years of postdoctoral or industry experience.
• A documented portfolio of novel inorganic compounds spanning multiple chemical systems.
• Hands-on proficiency across multiple inorganic synthesis modalities, with comfort selecting the right approach for a given target phase.
• Demonstrated experience performing materials synthesis campaigns driven by functional property targets (e.g., magnetism, nonlinear optical response, exotic charge transport, or related phenomena).
• Strong working command of complex multicomponent and multidimensional phase diagrams and the structural-chemistry principles that govern phase formation and stability.
• Deep proficiency in X-ray diffraction and scattering techniques, including quantitative phase analysis and Rietveld refinement.
• Fluency working across multimodal characterization (e.g., diffraction, magnetometry, transport, spectroscopy, microscopy) to inform synthesis decisions and iteration.
• Effective written and verbal communication, with a track record of cross-functional collaboration.

Bonus Points For

• Demonstrated depth in one or more functional inorganic material classes.
• Experience with single-crystal growth, particularly metallic flux, with additional methods (vapor transport, Bridgman, floating zone) welcome.
• Experience with metallurgical processing techniques for densification and sample conditioning (e.g., sintering, hot pressing, spark plasma sintering, arc melting, controlled annealing).
• Experience with neutron scattering, pair distribution function (PDF), or other local-structure techniques for solving structure and ordering in disordered or metastable phases.
• Comfort with inert-atmosphere handling (glovebox, Schlenk) and air- or moisture-sensitive chemistries.
• Exposure to high-pressure or otherwise unconventional preparative environments.
• Familiarity with thin-film or vacuum-based deposition techniques and how they fit alongside bulk synthesis.
• Proficiency in Python or similar tools for data analysis and workflow automation.
• Exposure to automated, high-throughput, or autonomous laboratory environments.

Expected Base Salary Range 128000 - 198000 USD