Metrology Application Engineer

Role details

Metrology Applications Engineer Confidential client. Search led by VoltForce. Location: San Leandro, CA (on-site) Job Type: Full-time

About The Company

VoltForce is working with an early-stage materials-inspection company on the search for a Metrology Applications Engineer. Our client helps manufacturers make better, safer, and more reliable micro- and nano-scale materials, the building blocks of critical sectors like energy storage, semiconductors, aerospace, and power systems. As demand surges and production grows more complex and faster, small undetected variations during manufacturing lead to waste, lower performance, higher cost, and safety risk, leaving manufacturers with little visibility into the quality of what they produce. The company's platform changes that.

It non-destructively probes materials during production, pairing a novel sensing approach with physics-informed machine learning to capture real-time signals that conventional measurement techniques cannot access. Those signals give manufacturers rare visibility into how materials behave as they are made. The company turns that hidden data into actionable intelligence, helping manufacturers reduce variability and increase yield and performance. The platform can run as a standalone tool or integrate directly into production lines, it is already in early deployment with leading global manufacturers, and the first commercial product is on the way.

Role Overview Our client is seeking a Metrology Applications Engineer to join its Customer Solutions Engineering team. This role combines hands-on technical work in the company's labs and at customer sites with direct, face-to-face engagement with customer engineering and operations teams. You will help demonstrate and develop new capabilities and use cases for the company's metrology platform. That includes working with customers to understand, deploy, and extract value from the platform by designing and executing demonstration studies, interpreting results, and translating insights into clear recommendations.

The company welcomes driven materials characterization and metrology specialists who want to make a tangible impact on advanced manufacturing and the green energy transition, and strongly encourages candidates from underrepresented groups to apply.

What You'll Do

• Work directly with customers, prospects, and collaborators to understand material and

product metrology requirements, then scope, plan, and execute appropriate demonstration studies and proofs of concept.

• Design, run, and analyze experiments in the company's labs and at customer facilities,

including test planning, data collection, and interpretation of metrology results.

• Present findings in a clear, structured way to customer engineers, managers, and executives,

and collaborate on next-step plans based on the results.

• Support installation, commissioning, and optimization of the company's systems at

customer sites, including basic troubleshooting and performance verification.

• Provide structured feedback from field deployments and customer interactions to the

company's product and engineering teams, influencing roadmap and usability improvements.

• Explore and identify new applications, performance capabilities, and product features that

expand the product and market opportunities for the company's platform.

• Contribute to the development and continuous improvement of internal methodologies,

calibration procedures, and best practices for metrology workflows.

• Create and maintain concise documentation (application notes, standard operating

procedures, quick-start guides) for customers and internal teams.

What We're Looking For

• A B.S. or M.S. in materials science, chemical engineering, chemistry, physics, or a closely

related technical discipline; or a Ph.D. in a relevant field.

• For B.S./M.S. candidates: 1 to 2 years of industry experience in manufacturing, metrology,

materials characterization, and/or materials development (coatings or precursor materials experience is a plus).

• For Ph.D. candidates: research or industry experience directly related to materials

characterization, materials fabrication or coating, or advanced manufacturing.

• Experience working with hardware and software in an industrial or manufacturing context

(e.g., lab instrumentation, in-line sensors, analytics tools).

• Familiarity with data analysis, unsupervised/supervised ML, and statistical process concepts

(e.g., SPC, Gauge R&R, basic modeling, trend analysis), and comfort using tools like JMP, Matlab, and/or Python.

• Strong interpersonal skills and confidence interacting face to face with customers, including

on shop floors, in labs, and in conference rooms.

• Ability and willingness to travel (up to ~25%) for customer site work, installations, and

conferences.

• Clear written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical

concepts to mixed technical/non-technical audiences.

• Adaptability and enthusiasm for working in a multidisciplinary environment where priorities

can shift based on customer needs.

Nice to Have

• Prior work or research experience in one or more of the company's key industrial markets

(batteries, aerospace, power generation, semiconductors, energy, electronics).

• Exposure to surface treatment or coating processes, high-temperature materials, or in

situ/on-line metrology systems.

• Fluency in one or more stakeholder languages (e.g., Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Korean,

German, French).