I am a senior scientist in a lithium ion battery materials startup in the SouthEast US. I do everything from materials design to synthesis to figuring out how to manufacture them, characterize them, test them in cells, even design the cells and lay out the process to build them, and do complicated data analysis, including providing integration support for future customers. Also doing a lot of work to support future scale up of the technology. The nature of work is incredibly stimulating and challenging, and I sort of like solving these kinds of complex problems. Problem is the location just has neither the tech and business ecosystem to support such companies. As for company itself, initially I was told something else but after starting here I found it's been in a constant struggle for survival due to all kinds of self-inflicted reasons, too many to say. The location is not bad, but as one of the poorest states in the US, it is economically depressing with no better opportunities around. Pay is okayish as in it's not really bad for LCOL area, but there are no raises or bonuses or anything at all. Plus there is no hope of ever going public. I have been applying here and there but I would like to get out of here in the coming new year (after or in late January). Have been getting some bites from recruiters in the energy storage field but probably not getting enough interest from the hiring teams of the better companies after I have an initial conversation. I think the reason is that I actually don't have an exact 'academic research background' in batteries, but I do have a PhD in MechE with research emphasis in manufacturing science - with work in areas ranging from nanomaterials to microelectronics to bulk manufacturing. I just wanted to get a feel if there are others in this community who may know of battery-related scientist or R&D roles somewhere either in materials (like silicon anodes) or in advanced cell manufacturing. I know I'm not an academically trained battery scientist, but if not that I'm willing to change tracks to other advanced hard tech. YOE: 2.5 TC: 120 base
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Enovix has potential.
I believe they recently laid off all their technical staff at the Fremont location and are now concentrating on scaling up their Malaysian location.
If you're interested in silicon anodes there's Group 14 here in WA. I know they are looking for R&D and they are building manufacturing out in Moses Lake. Here near Seattle isn't exactly low COL but they are out in the more rural area. There's another company doing the same out in Moses Lake but I can't remember the name. They are all locating out there near the silane plant.
G14, Sila, and OneD are building out their scale up plants in that area. All solid companies. But not hiring within the materials research/product dev groups at this moment, instead more so in process engineering for unit operations. Waiting to see if they open up more positions soon.
Tesla?
Project kuiper at amazon is hiring. Requires US person status