Materials Science Expert

Role Title: Materials Science Expert

Role Type: Contractor

Location: Remote

Opportunity Snapshot

Pay: $80- $185/hour

Commitment: Flexible — fits alongside your current role

Location: Fully remote

You’ll need: Master’s or PhD in materials science or a closely related field, plus principal-level industry experience or a faculty appointment

Your tasks: Build challenging technical problems from your own domain and define what makes an answer correct

You'll be working on

The problems where the textbook answer isn’t enough, where the right approach depends on reading the constraints correctly, where a plausible-looking solution is quietly wrong. You’ll build those problems, provide the correct analysis, and define what separates a right answer from one that only looks right.

What you’ll do

1. Design difficult technical problems from your own area — structure-property relationships, processing, characterization, failure analysis, computational materials — with realistic constraints and supporting data.
2. Provide the correct solution and walk through the reasoning that gets there.
3. Define objective criteria for correctness, so another expert reviewing the work would reach the same verdict.
4. Review problems built by other contributors for technical accuracy and soundness of method.
5. Flag problems that turn out to be ambiguous or ungradable rather than submitting them.

What we’re looking for

1. Master’s or PhD in materials science, metallurgy, ceramics, polymer science, condensed matter physics, or a closely related field.
2. Principal, staff, or fellow-level experience in industrial or national lab research, or a faculty appointment at a leading university.
3. Deep technical depth in at least one materials subdomain, with hands-on ownership of the work.
4. Able to explain why an answer is correct clearly enough that another scientist could verify it.
5. Publications, patents, or a record of technical leadership is a strong plus.
6. AI or LLM evaluation experience is a plus, but not required.

How the selection process works

1. Apply and complete the screening questions
2. Complete the AI interview for this role — it’s how your expertise gets in front of the client
3. Profile review
4. Onboarding — our Talent Ops team will get you set up