Battery Research Engineer

Role details

Organization

Florida International University

Location

Miami, Florida

Position

Full-time, on-site

Status

Upcoming position; preliminary candidate screening underway

Upcoming opportunity

This position is expected to be formally posted soon. We are currently screening prospective candidates to identify qualified individuals who will be invited to apply when the official position announcement becomes available.

Interested candidates are encouraged to provide a résumé or CV and a brief description of their relevant hands-on experience. This announcement is an expression-of-interest notice, not the formal job posting.

Role description

Florida International University’s Battery Research Laboratory seeks a hands-on Battery Process and Prototyping Engineer to take responsibility for the daily operation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of battery fabrication and testing equipment.

The position focuses on roll-to-roll electrode processing, pouch-cell assembly, and electrochemical testing of large-format battery cells with capacities of

10 Ah or greater

. The successful candidate will work directly with equipment and materials, support reproducible fabrication processes, and maintain safe and reliable laboratory and dry-room operations.

We welcome candidates from the battery industry, research centers, pilot-scale or prototyping facilities, national laboratories, and academic laboratories, provided their primary experience involves hands-on battery processing, pouch-cell fabrication, and large-format cell testing.

This is an operational engineering position, not primarily a computational modeling, materials characterization, or research oversight role. The engineer will collaborate with faculty, researchers, and students while taking ownership of equipment readiness and day-to-day fabrication and testing activities.

Key responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, and troubleshoot roll-to-roll electrode processing equipment, including coating, drying, calendering, and slitting equipment, as applicable to the center’s facilities.
• Prepare and process electrode materials, establish processing parameters, and resolve issues affecting electrode quality, consistency, and fabrication yield.
• Perform pouch-cell assembly activities, including electrode preparation, stacking or winding, tab welding, electrolyte filling, sealing, formation, and aging.
• Set up and conduct electrochemical testing of battery cells rated at 10 Ah or greater, including cycling, rate-performance evaluation, and analysis of performance degradation and cell failure.
• Manage day-to-day equipment readiness through inspections, preventive maintenance, troubleshooting, maintenance records, and coordination with equipment vendors and service providers.
• Work routinely in dry-room environments and follow procedures for handling moisture-sensitive battery materials and components.
• Develop and maintain standard operating procedures, equipment-use guidelines, fabrication records, and testing documentation.
• Identify fabrication defects, equipment problems, and sources of process variability; implement and document corrective actions.
• Coordinate equipment use, fabrication schedules, and testing activities across research projects.
• Train students, researchers, and other authorized users in equipment operation, fabrication procedures, and safe working practices.
• Support consumables management, laboratory organization, and safe handling and disposal of battery materials and cells.
• Analyze process and testing data and prepare technical reports to support research decisions and process improvement.

Required qualifications

• A bachelor’s degree in materials engineering, materials science, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, or a closely related field, with at least five years of relevant hands-on experience; or a master’s or doctoral degree in one of these fields with at least three years of relevant hands-on experience.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience in all three core areas: roll-to-roll electrode processing, pouch-cell assembly, and electrochemical testing of battery cells rated at 10 Ah or greater.
• Relevant experience in the battery industry, a research center, a pilot-scale or prototyping facility, a national laboratory, or an academic laboratory, with battery processing, fabrication, and testing constituting the candidate’s primary experience.
• Direct experience working in dry-room environments and handling moisture-sensitive battery materials.
• Demonstrated ability to independently operate, maintain, and troubleshoot battery fabrication and testing equipment.
• Practical understanding of how electrode processing and cell assembly parameters affect cell quality, reproducibility, and performance.
• Experience operating battery cyclers, analyzing test data, and documenting fabrication and testing procedures.
• Ability to follow laboratory safety requirements and work safely with battery materials, processing equipment, and large-format cells.
• Strong technical documentation, communication, and teamwork skills, including the ability to train equipment users.

Experience limited to coin-cell fabrication, materials characterization, computational modeling, or research supervision does not satisfy the core hands-on requirements of this position. An advanced degree does not substitute for the required practical experience.

Preferred qualifications and candidate screening

• Knowledge of battery modules, including module assembly, integration, or testing.
• Experience installing, commissioning, or qualifying battery fabrication and testing equipment.
• Experience developing, scaling, or improving pilot-scale electrode processing and pouch-cell fabrication processes.
• Familiarity with process quality control, traceability, fabrication yield improvement, and root-cause analysis.
• Experience managing preventive maintenance, spare parts, and vendor service coordination.
• Experience supporting multiple users and research projects in a shared battery fabrication facility.

For preliminary screening, candidates should submit a résumé or CV and a brief description of the equipment they have personally operated, the pouch-cell capacities they have fabricated and tested, their roll-to-roll processing and dry-room experience, and their direct responsibilities for equipment maintenance and troubleshooting.