Principal Scientist / Associate Director, Soft Materials Experimentation

Your Impact at LILA

Lila is hiring a Scientific Leader to build and run our experimental soft materials team, covering formulations, polymers, colloids, gels, emulsions, inks, adhesives, and coatings. You will take on a group of four scientists and grow it as the portfolio expands across formulation, rheological and scattering characterization, and polymer processing. The team turns soft-matter problems into closed-loop autonomous workflows: defining what gets measured, how it gets measured at throughput, and how the resulting data supports active learning and inverse design. The work asks you to stay close to the bench while mentoring a growing team and setting its direction over a multi-year growth horizon.

What You'll Be Building

• Lead and grow a group of scientists spanning formulation, polymer processing, and physical characterization; set scientific direction, develop the team, and hire against an expanding portfolio
• Own the experimental strategy for soft materials — the measurement stack, the campaign designs, and the scientific validity of what the group publishes internally and to partners
• Hold your team's delivery on partner-funded programs alongside the technical program managers who own the programs themselves, setting the standard on timelines, throughput, and data quality