Materials Laboratory Scientist, Solid State Synthesis, DeepMind

Materials Laboratory Scientist, Solid State Synthesis, DeepMind

DeepMind London, UK

Qualifications

• PhD in Materials Science, State Chemistry, Condensed Matter Physics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 2 years of experience in solid state synthesis methodologies and structural characterization techniques (e.g., XRD).

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working in laboratory automation, robotics, or high throughput experimental workflows in a materials R&D lab and with characterization techniques (e.g., electrical, magnetic, or optical property measurements).
• Experience in solid state synthesis methodologies and handling air sensitive materials in inert environments, and in structural characterization techniques, particularly XRD.
• Ability to own lab operations, instrument health, and safety, with stringent laboratory safety protocols concerning vacuum systems, high voltage equipment, and hazardous chemical precursors.
• Excellent programming (e.g., Python) and lab management software skills or experience managing chemical inventories, safety documentation, instrument control, custom data analysis, and computational methods.

Responsibilities

• Develop and execute synthesis workflows for novel inorganic materials, using a broad range of specialty equipment.
• Lead the structural characterization of synthesized candidates using XRD and electron microscopy, applying crystallographic analysis (e.g., Rietveld refinement) to validate phase purity and atomic structure.
• Collaborate with research scientists and the wider material intelligence team to analyze experimental outcomes, including negative results, to refine the predictive capabilities of computational models.
• Partner with automation engineers to design, test, and validate new hardware modules for sample preparation and synthesis, ensuring manual recipes can be scaled into reliable robotic protocols.

About the job

Snapshot Science is at the heart of everything we do at Google DeepMind. From the beginning, we took inspiration from science to build better algorithms, and now, we want to use the toolkit to accelerate scientific discovery. By bringing together specialists with backgrounds in machine learning, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology and more, we're optimistic that we can build new methods that will push the boundaries of what is possible and help solve the biggest problems facing humanity.

Google DeepMind is establishing the Materials Discovery Laboratory, a state of the art automated facility designed to bridge the gap between AI predictions and physical reality. This lab will serve as the engine of our materials research program, combining high throughput synthesis and characterization with advanced robotics to create a closed loop discovery system.

In this role, you will bridge the gap between theoretical prediction and physical reality, developing robust synthesis strategies for superconductors, ceramics, and other functional materials. You will work at the interface of chemistry and automation, collaborating with engineers to translate bespoke bench top techniques into standardized, high throughput workflows that generate high fidelity data for model training.

Additional Requirements

English proficiency is a requirement for all roles unless otherwise stated in the job posting.

Equal Opportunity Statement

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