Demo

Senior/Principal Materials Scientist - Materials Lifecycle Management, Onsite

Sandia National Laboratories
Albuquerque, NM Full Time
POSTED ON 4/25/2026
AVAILABLE BEFORE 5/25/2026
About Sandia

Sandia National Laboratories is the nation’s premier science and engineering lab for national security and technology innovation, with teams of specialists focused on cutting-edge work in a broad array of areas. Some of the main reasons we love our jobs:

  • Challenging work with amazing impact that contributes to security, peace, and freedom worldwide
  • Extraordinary co-workers
  • Some of the best tools, equipment, and research facilities in the world
  • Career advancement and enrichment opportunities
  • Flexible work arrangements for many positions include 9/80 (work 80 hours every two weeks, with every other Friday off) and 4/10 (work 4 ten-hour days each week) compressed workweeks, part-time work, and telecommuting (a mix of onsite work and working from home)
  • Generous vacation, strong medical and other benefits, competitive 401k, learning opportunities, relocation assistance and amenities aimed at creating a solid work/life balance*

World-changing technologies. Life-changing careers. Learn more about Sandia at: http://www.sandia.gov

  • These benefits vary by job classification.

What Your Job Will Be Like

As a Materials Scientist you will lead a multidisciplinary, multi-site team in discovering and communicating material unavailability risks. You and the team will be responsible for frequent communications with engineering stakeholders at SNL along with NNSA/HQ. You will gain insights into the material qualification process across multiple disciplines, enabling a broader view of struggles to mitigate material unavailability risks (and perhaps you'll help solve those struggles).

On any given day, you may be called on to:

  • Lead a multi-center team to discover and understand material risks across regulatory, supply chain, and technical factors.
  • Lead a multi-center team to document and report on material unavailability risks across regulatory, supply chain, and technical factors.
  • Provide technical and programmatic leadership to the internal and external At-Risk Materials community.
  • Communicate material unavailability risk internally to engineering stakeholders and management.
  • Communicate material unavailability risks externally to other sites within the nuclear security enterprise and NNSA/HQ.
  • Understand qualitative impacts of material unavailability risks and the barriers to solving those risks.
  • Engage with the broader materials science and engineering communities to build a small portfolio of work advancing key technical themes (e.g., rapid material qualification).

Due to the nature of the work, the selected applicant must be able to work onsite.

Salary Range

$117,500 - $235,700

  • Salary range is estimated, and actual salary will be determined after consideration of the selected candidate's experience and qualifications, and application of any approved geographic salary differential.

Qualifications We Require

  • A Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline and five (5) years of directly relevant experience, or an equivalent combination of directly relevant education and engineering or scientific experience that demonstrates the knowledge, skills, and ability to perform independent research and development.¿
  • Ability to obtain and maintain a DOE Q clearance

Qualifications We Desire

The ideal R&D S&E Materials Science candidate for Sandia National Laboratories will in addition possess the following:

  • Graduate degree in Materials Science or a highly related field where an independent research project was a graduation requirement (e.g., independent project, thesis, or dissertation).¿
  • Experience in a research and development environment.¿
  • Experience with materials characterization techniques.¿
  • Experience working on teams consisting of multidisciplinary and multi-disciplinary experimentalists, modelers, and theorists with a common goal.¿
  • Effective interpersonal skills for giving presentations, preparing reports, writing articles, and explaining the important aspects of technical work to customers.¿

Also, for this posting we are seeking individuals with the following experience:

  • Experience in leading multidisciplinary teams.
  • Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
  • Ability to adapt when urgent issues arise.
  • Ability to balance evolving strategy and tactical needs.

About Our Team

Sandia's Materials Lifecycle Management Department is a diverse team of engineers and scientists dedicated to teaming with both research and mission delivery organizations to address materials-based risks (i.e., quality, availability, compatibility and aging) and enable new material discovery. Our team provides a critical interface with the NNSA and engineering stakeholders through its leadership of the Aging & Lifetimes and At-Risk Materials programs enabling informed engineering design decisions. We develop scalable, FAIR data management solutions to empower AI/ML research, assess material compatibility, manage the Granta data based, its material records, and new material data ingestion, and utilize and develop GenAI models for finding novel, application specific materials. This department has a strong record of delivering critical materials information to broad internal and external stakeholders that improves SNL's and the broader Nuclear Security Enterprise's (NSE) mission delivery.

Posting Duration

This posting will be open for application submissions for a minimum of three (3) calendar days, including the 'posting date'. Sandia reserves the right to extend the posting date at any time.

Security Clearance

Sandia is required by DOE to conduct a pre-employment drug test and background review that includes checks of personal references, credit, law enforcement records, and employment/education verifications. Applicants for employment need to be able to obtain and maintain a DOE Q-level security clearance, which requires U.S. citizenship. If you hold more than one citizenship (i.e., of the U.S. and another country), your ability to obtain a security clearance may be impacted.

Applicants offered employment with Sandia are subject to a federal background investigation to meet the requirements for access to classified information or matter if the duties of the position require a DOE security clearance. Substance abuse or illegal drug use, falsification of information, criminal activity, serious misconduct or other indicators of untrustworthiness can cause a clearance to be denied or terminated by DOE, resulting in the inability to perform the duties assigned and subsequent termination of employment.

Eeo

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or veteran status and any other protected class under state or federal law.

NNSA Requirements For MedPEDs

If you have a Medical Portable Electronic Device (MedPED), such as a pacemaker, defibrillator, drug-releasing pump, hearing aids, or diagnostic equipment and other equipment for measuring, monitoring, and recording body functions such as heartbeat and brain waves, if employed by Sandia National Laboratories you may be required to comply with NNSA security requirements for MedPEDs.

If you have a MedPED and you are selected for an on-site interview at Sandia National Laboratories, there may be additional steps necessary to ensure compliance with NNSA security requirements prior to the interview date.

Job ID: 697516

Job Family: RD

Regular/Temporary Position: R

Full/Part-Time Status: F

Salary : $117,500 - $235,700

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