Description

Location & Compensation

Mountain View, California. Full-time and on-site.
Compensation depends on experience and capability, plus early-employee equity. Benefits include medical, dental, vision, and a 401(k). We sponsor visas and help with relocation.

About Atum Works

The planar lithography process transformed our ability to create objects that sense, display, transmit, store, and process information.
It enabled the modern world, but it has reached its limit.
Instead of smaller features, the semiconductor industry now builds complexity into the third dimension layer-by-layer, in exchange for growing process cost, complexity and time.
Atum Works is building the world's first 3D lithography foundry.
We have developed new manufacturing paradigms to pattern metal and dielectric materials in 3D, over large areas, at um resolution. This unlocks many valuable products. We are now scaling production volume.

People

The world is changed by small groups of unusually capable people working on ambitious problems together.
We are a team of < 15 technologists.
We take existing things apart and put new things together.
Our advisory board includes H.S. Philip Wong, Eli Yablonovitch, Julia Greer, Michael Hochberg, Pooya Tadayon, and others.
Our supporters include Jeff Dean, Ram Shriram, Paul Graham, Yasmin Razavi, Lachy Groom, Naval Ravikant, Charlie Songhurst, Micky Malka, Sarah Guo, Sanjay Natarajan, Naveen Rao, Yuri Sagalov, and many others.

Role Summary

As an Electrochemical Process Engineer, you will own the electrochemistry that builds our 3D metal structures.
You are responsible for developing and executing the right models, experiments, and analyses to improve product performance and process yield. You are responsible for assembling and operating the experimental and instrumental equipment to get large quantities of high quality, repeatable data, drawing actionable conclusions from that data, and implementing necessary changes to our process chemistry and equipment. You will make impactful discoveries, decisions, and inventions that will shape a foundational domain of manufacturing.
The role can be scoped from junior individual contributor through senior. Your role may grow to include hiring and leading a team. You will have substantial autonomy, together with the resources to acquire the equipment you require and to engage outside vendors and laboratories. You will be in the lab on a daily basis.

Requirements

Table Stakes

• You question assumptions and reason from first principles.
• A foundation in chemical engineering, chemistry, or electrochemistry, analytical chemistry included. At a minimum, rigorous coursework in electrochemistry, analytical chemistry, or chemical engineering together with hands-on laboratory experience.
• A demonstrated record of experimental problem-solving and repeatable, reproducible results in chemical, electrochemical, materials, or process systems.
• Care and responsibility in handling hazardous chemicals, and full willingness to work at a fume hood.
• A high degree of ownership, initiative, and the ability to work independently.

You can point to occasions on which you have:

• Developed and then experimentally validated a model of a physical or chemical system.
• Designed, conducted and interpreted your own experiments.
• Propagated and isolated sources of experimental uncertainty and error.
• Fixed broken experimental equipment and procedures.
• Built custom experimental equipment and instruments, or modified existing ones
• Drawn a defensible conclusion from real world data.
• Clearly and thoroughly documented and communicated your methods, data, analyses, and results.

Electrochemistry or chemical-process experience is desired, but not required. Hands-on work in analytical chemistry, corrosion or battery electrochemistry, materials science, or process development and integration can be equally compelling. We would rather hire an excellent experimentalist and chemist who can learn electrochemistry than a candidate with the exact background but weaker judgment at the bench.
We welcome candidates from the BS through the PhD level, and from industry as well as academia. A degree is not required.

Bonus Points

• You have manufactured a precision product or material via gas or liquid deposition and removal techniques.
• You have isolated and tuned process parameters to improve material properties, process repeatability, and product yield.
• Experience operating SEM, AFM, profilometry, voltammetry including rotating-disk-electrode methods, impedance spectroscopy, etc.
• Experience with electrochemical metal deposition, including conformal or void-free fill.
• Experience establishing new instruments, setups, or chemistries.
• Experience with semiconductor interconnects, MEMS, or advanced manufacturing.
• Experience transitioning a process from research and development into production.
• Experience implementing and validating numerical physical models out of necessity.
• Experience in robotics, or automating experimental procedures.

Equal Opportunity Employer

We are proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of any protected characteristic under applicable federal, state, or local laws.