What are the responsibilities and job description for the Sr. Material Researcher position at Material Bank?
Material Bank is the world's largest material marketplace for the architecture and design industry. Operating in 37 countries, our platform has become the standard for design professionals around the globe. Every day, Material Bank connects thousands of designers with tens of thousands of materials from leading brands. Material Bank is the fastest and most powerful way for design professionals to search, sample, and specify materials.
Material Bank is seeking a Sr. Material Researcher to own the catalog experience across a portfolio of material categories. This role is responsible for developing deep expertise in assigned categories and ensuring the products within them are represented accurately, completely, and in a way that supports how architects and designers search for and specify materials.
The Sr. Material Researcher will work across product data, Brand Partners, designer research, and search behavior to identify opportunities to improve the category experience. This includes enriching product information, identifying missing data and assets, working with brands to improve catalog completeness, and recommending how attributes, filters, terminology, and product information should be structured and presented.
Success in this role means knowing your categories deeply and continually finding ways to make them better for both designers and Brand Partners.
What you'll do
- Own the catalog experience for assigned material categories, developing deep expertise in the products, brands, terminology, attributes, and specification considerations within each.
- Perform advanced product and attribute enrichment, identifying gaps in product data, technical information, images, and assets and working with Brand Partners to improve catalog completeness.
- Build relationships with Brand Partners to deepen our understanding of their products, gather additional data and insights, and identify opportunities to better represent their catalogs.
- Conduct research with architects and designers to understand how they search for, evaluate, compare, and specify products within assigned categories.
- Analyze search queries and user behavior to identify opportunities to improve product discovery, including filters, attributes, terminology, and synonyms.
- Shape how products within assigned categories are structured and presented, including the attributes prioritized on product detail pages, controlled vocabularies, taxonomy, and hierarchy.
- Lead the catalog development and onboarding of new categories, establishing the data structure and standards needed to represent them effectively.
- Partner with Catalog, Product, Search, Brand, and other teams to identify and implement improvements that make assigned categories more complete, accurate, and useful over time.
What you'll bring
- Deep knowledge of architectural materials, building products, interior products, or product specification, ideally gained through architecture, interior design, a material library, or a manufacturer's product or technical team.
- Strong understanding of how architects and designers search for, evaluate, compare, and specify materials.
- Experience with product catalogs, PIM systems, taxonomy, attributes, controlled vocabularies, faceted search, or other forms of structured product content.
- Strong research and analytical skills, with the ability to work through incomplete information, identify patterns across data and user feedback, and translate findings into practical recommendations.
- Curiosity and the ability to develop deep expertise in assigned material categories while quickly learning unfamiliar products and material types.
- Strong judgment and the ability to work independently, make well-reasoned decisions, and recognize when an issue has broader implications across the catalog.
- Strong communication and relationship-building skills, with experience working directly with manufacturers, Brand Partners, architects, designers, or other industry stakeholders.
- High attention to detail, curiosity, and a strong sense of ownership for the quality of the categories you manage.
What you'll get from us:
- Our people: We are a growth-driven team that values efficiency, builds smart automation, operates in small empowered teams, and moves quickly from idea to execution.
- Relaxation and Celebrations: Flexible PTO, Sick Days, Paid National Holidays, and even more (ask us about this when we connect).
- Health Benefits: We contribute to your medical, dental, vision and short-term/long-term disability plans and have a strong employee assistance program.
- Plan for your Retirement: 401(k) eligible after your first 90 day's employed!
- Giving Back: We sponsor multiple events throughout the year to help out our communities.
- Growth: We'll help you take your career to the next level. We want you to be creative and take initiative which will allow you to grow and create within the company. Most importantly, be the best at what matters!
- Flexible Work Schedules: With business units and employees across the globe, Material Technologies has embraced a hybrid working model allowing department leaders to decide on the best approach for their respective teams, whether that be remote, in person, or a little of both.
Material Bank is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity, and all applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, veteran or disability status or other status protected under any applicable federal, state or local law.