Senior Staff R&D Engineer – Thermal-Fluids & Process Modeling

About Us

We are Sila, a next-generation battery materials company. Our mission is to power the world’s transition to clean energy. To create this future, our team is building a better lithium-ion battery from the inside out today. We engineer and manufacture ground-breaking battery materials that significantly increase the energy density of batteries, while reducing their size and weight. The result? Smaller more powerful batteries that can unlock innovation in consumer devices and accelerate the mass adoption of electric cars to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. We're tackling one of the biggest challenges of our time every day, and together we're redefining what's possible. Are you ready to be a part of a team committed to changing the world?

Who You Are

Sila’s Process and Equipment R&D group is seeking a Senior Staff R&D Engineer to help tackle hard technical challenges as we scale up next-generation battery materials and first-of-a-kind manufacturing technology. This team dives deep into the core principles governing our products and their production - including reaction kinetics, energetics, transport phenomena, process & equipment architecture, and material properties – to develop the fundamental knowledge required to design technology and predict behavior at giga-factory scale. You’ll explore new reactions and their impacts, lead root-cause investigations, develop novel experimental approaches, and lead R&D projects.

You’re an engineer with a curiosity and drive to understand how things actually work. You have a tendency to crush problems completely, breaking them down to interpret the relevant physics, ensuring you have a fundamental understanding, then applying that to a robust solution. You don’t need to be a CFD expert, you’re an engineer with breadth, having learned a wide array of skills and domains to stay unblocked on a problem, whether they be 3D simulation, designing experimental hardware, or hands-on know-how of tube bending or soldering custom circuits - anything to get to the answer. You’ll split your time roughly evenly between modeling and experimentation, and lead the projects that tie them together. As part of a team of R&D engineers, you’ll help Sila build the foundation of knowledge required to reach Sila’s ultimate goals of delivering advanced battery materials at world-scale.

Responsibilities and Duties

• Lead R&D projects, including method selection, experimental design, preparation, execution, and analysis
• Apply the scientific method to technology problems and convert learnings into robust solutions
• Build and validate physics-based models - from 0D/1D/2D models in Python to 3D simulation in COMSOL or similar - for thermal-structural, reactive, and flow problems in high-temperature reactor systems, including fluidized beds, and use them to drive R&D and process and equipment design decisions.
• Identify and evaluate new technologies and tools that will enhance our capabilities
• Work closely with engineering teams (e.g. process, equipment, controls, manufacturing) to translate fundamental knowledge into practical applications
• Synthesize, contextualize, document, and communicate learnings for technical and non-technical audiences

Knowledge and Skill Requirements

• A track record of technical leadership and mentoring without formal authority, particularly leading and delivering experimental R&D projects
• Demonstrated use of physics-based models to drive real R&D outcomes, with the judgment to know when a 0D energy balance answers the question and when a 3D model is worth building, and the skill to design real-world validation experiments
• Demonstrated excellence in data analysis; data cleaning, validating, and interpreting large experimental and process datasets to reach defensible conclusions
• Strong laboratory testing aptitude, intuition for what will work and ability to execute quickly and effectively
• Proficiency in Python or similar programming languages and data analysis tools
• Understanding, and proven application of, physics and engineering fundamentals: heat transfer, fluids, structures, thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, transport phenomena, and materials.
• 10+ years of relevant professional experience; an MS or PhD counts towards this

Preferred:

• Hands-on COMSOL Multiphysics (heat transfer, structural, CFD modules) or comparable tools
• Experience with high-temperature gas–solid reactors or chemical vapor deposition

Education

• B.S. in engineering or physical sciences (e.g. Mechanical Engineering, Physics, etc.), advanced degrees preferred.

Location

• On-site in Alameda, CA.
• Up to 15% travel, domestic or international.

The starting base pay for this role is between $172,000 and $218,000 at the time of posting. The actual base pay depends on many factors, such as education, experience, and skills. Base pay is only one part of Sila’s competitive Total Rewards package that can include benefits, perks, and equity. The base pay range is subject to change and may be modified in the future.

Working at Sila

We believe that building a diverse team at Sila helps us amplify our individual talents. We are an equal opportunity employer and committed to creating an inclusive environment where good ideas are free to come from anyone. We are proud to celebrate diversity and all qualified applicants are considered for employment without regard to gender, race, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, national origin, or any other status protected by law.