Materials Engineer - Adhesives and Sealing

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions-free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract. 

As a company, we constantly challenge what’s possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations. 

Adhesives and sealants hold Rivian vehicles together and keep water, dust, and fluids out of the battery, cabin, and electronics. As a Materials Engineer in the Failure Analysis and Materials Engineering team, you will work directly with our technical leads to qualify new adhesives and sealants, solve bonding and sealing issues, and turn test data into the specifications our engineers design and build to. In addition, you will work alongside with other subject matter experts in varieties of materials technologies and analytical techniques that share the same desire for adventures.

This is a hands-on, lab-first role. Most of your week will be spent designing test plans, preparing specimens, running mechanical, thermal, and environmental tests, and reporting what the data says. Your work will reach every emission-free electric adventure vehicle, including R1, R2, and Commercial Van, to charging hardware, and accessories, and your curiosity, skills and dedication will help drive Rivan towards its goal of preserving the natural world for generations to come.

• Plan and run laboratory testing of structural and semi-structural adhesives, pumpable sealants, formed-in-place and pre-cut gaskets, potting compounds, and thermally conductive adhesives and gap fillers used across battery, body, closures, electronics, and charging hardware.
• Execute mechanical testing at the material and joint level, including lap shear, peel, tensile and elongation, hardness, compression set, and compression stress relaxation.
• Characterize cure, thermal, and chemical behavior with DSC, TGA, DMA, FTIR, and rheometry, and relate the results to processing windows and long-term performance.
• Run environmental and durability aging (heat, humidity, thermal shock, fluid resistance, and cyclic corrosion such as SAE J2334) and component-level sealing tests, including leak and pressure-decay testing and ingress protection to ISO 20653 (IP67, IP6K9K).
• Qualify new materials and alternate sources: build test plans with DOE where it adds value, test against Rivian material specifications, write qualification reports, and support engineering approval through the Rivian design process.
• Support failure analysis of bond and seal failures across prototype builds, design validation, supplier development, launch, quality alerts, and field returns. Classify failure modes (adhesive, cohesive, substrate, mixed), cross-section and image failed joints (optical microscopy, SEM/EDS), and document root-cause evidence for containment and corrective action.
• Keep test data accurate and accessible in Rivian’s materials database, and provide material property data for CAE and material card development.
• Present results clearly to technical leads in materials engineering, design, manufacturing, quality, and supplier teams through concise test reports and review decks.
• Own day-to-day lab execution: fixture design, specimen preparation procedures, equipment upkeep and calibration, and safe chemical handling.
• Support the technical lead(s) in Materials Engineering and work with manufacturing and supplier quality on dispense, cure, and bead inspection, and evaluate how surface preparation and contamination affect adhesion using methods such as contact angle and surface energy measurement.
• Support the technical lead(s) in Materials Engineering and work with adhesive and sealant suppliers, Tier 1s, and third-party labs to request samples, review data sheets and test reports, and resolve gaps against Rivian requirements.

• B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Polymer Science, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• Hands-on experience with mechanical testing of polymers on a universal testing frame (Instron, MTS, ZwickRoell, or similar), including fixturing and specimen preparation.
• Working experience with: DSC, TGA, DMA, FTIR, rheometry, optical microscopy, SEM/EDS.
• Solid grounding in polymer fundamentals: thermoset cure chemistry (epoxy, polyurethane, acrylic, silicone, silane-modified polymer), glass transition, viscoelasticity, and how temperature, humidity, and chemical exposure degrade adhesion and seal performance.
• Understanding of adhesion failure modes and the role of surface preparation in bond durability.
• Clear technical writing: test plans, lab procedures, reports, and specifications.
• Data analysis in Python, JMP, Minitab, or equivalent, with working knowledge of basic statistics and design of experiments.
• Comfort spending most of the workday in a laboratory environment, handling chemicals safely and following lab safety practices.
• Ability to manage several test programs at once and communicate status and results to engineers across functions.
• The desire to create a respectful, fun, inclusive, and inspiring team and company culture.

Preferred Qualifications

• B.S. with 1+ years of relevant industry experience in materials engineering or materials testing, or an M.S. with hands-on research in polymers, adhesion, or materials characterization.
• Experience with adhesives or sealants in automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, or heavy equipment, such as structural bonding of aluminum, steel, and composites, battery pack sealing, potting and encapsulation, or thermal gap fillers.
• Familiarity with ASTM, ISO, and SAE test standards for adhesives and elastomers, and with OEM material specification formats (for example GMW, Ford WSS, or VW TL/PV).
• Experience with environmental chambers, cyclic corrosion, ingress protection, or leak testing at the component or vehicle level.
• Exposure to dispense and cure processes, including meter-mix equipment, robotic bead dispense, UV or induction cure, and vision-based bead inspection.
• Experience with failure analysis tools such as cross-sectioning, SEM/EDS, and X-ray or CT inspection.
• Exposure to hyperelastic or viscoelastic material characterization for CAE, or material card development in Abaqus or LS-DYNA.
• Familiarity with DFMEA and PFMEA, 8D problem solving, and APQP/PPAP.
• Experience working with material suppliers or third-party test labs.

Equal Opportunity

Rivian is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local fair employment practices laws. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information or characteristics, physical or mental disability, marital/domestic partner status, age, military/veteran status, medical condition, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Rivian is committed to ensuring that our hiring process is accessible for persons with disabilities. If you have a disability or limitation, such as those covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act, that requires accommodations to assist you in the search and application process, please email us at [email protected].

Candidate Data Privacy and Technology

Rivian may collect, use and disclose your personal information or personal data (within the meaning of the applicable data protection laws) when you apply for employment and/or participate in our recruitment processes (“Candidate Personal Data”). This data includes contact, demographic, communications, educational, professional, employment, social media/website, network/device, recruiting system usage/interaction, security and preference information. Rivian may use your Candidate Personal Data for the purposes of (i) tracking interactions with our recruiting system; (ii) carrying out, analyzing and improving our application and recruitment process, including assessing you and your application and conducting employment, background and reference checks; (iii) establishing an employment relationship or entering into an employment contract with you; (iv) complying with our legal, regulatory and corporate governance obligations; (v) recordkeeping; (vi) ensuring network and information security and preventing fraud; and (vii) as otherwise required or permitted by applicable law. 

Rivian may share your Candidate Personal Data with (i) internal personnel who have a need to know such information in order to perform their duties, including individuals on our People Team, Finance, Legal, and the team(s) with the position(s) for which you are applying; (ii) Rivian affiliates; and (iii) Rivian’s service providers, including providers of background checks, staffing services, and cloud services. 

Rivian may transfer or store internationally your Candidate Personal Data, including to or in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and in the cloud, and this data may be subject to the laws and accessible to the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities of such jurisdictions.  

How We Use AI in Our Hiring Process: To ensure transparency, we want candidates to know that Rivian uses iCIMS Talent Cloud Artificial Intelligence (TCAI) and AI-enabled tools to assist with screening, reviewing, organizing and highlighting profiles and applications that match the key requirements for each role.

AI does not make hiring decisions: Qualified candidate applications are reviewed by a member of our team, and all decisions throughout the process are made by humans. We use AI to support efficiency and consistency, not to replace human judgment. We are committed to a fair, thoughtful, and equitable experience for every candidate.

Participation in AI profile matching is entirely voluntary. If you prefer that your profile not be used in this process, you can opt out at any time. Opting out means your profile will be excluded from automated matching and will not be surfaced for additional roles through this system. Your current application remains active and will not be affected in any way.

Interview Integrity & AI Policy 

Our interview process is designed to evaluate your personal technical foundation, real-time problem-solving logic, and structured capabilities. Therefore, the use of assistive generative AI tools to formulate or deliver your solutions during live interview sessions is not permitted. We care most about how you think — how you make sense of unclear requirements, weigh trade-offs, and explain why you chose one approach over another. We value your unique human perspective, your authenticity, and the journey it takes to reach a solution.

Please note that we are currently not accepting applications from third party application services.