Senior Scientist, Materials performance and interactions

Are you interested in contributing to the development and assessment of materials and manufacturing solutions to support green transition, such as hydrogen technologies and other alternative fuels and renewable energy? 

We are now looking for a Senior Scientist to join our Materials performance and interactions team. 

We are looking for a Senior Scientist to develop sustainable material solutions for green transition, specializing in surface and tribological phenomena in different applications. High performance and reliability together with energy and material efficiencies are key features of the engineering applications. With us, you will be developing new concepts and solutions for experimental and modelling approaches to support sustainable technologies. Our research topics often stem from real problems, so knowing the field in industry is essential to be able to develop bigger concepts. 

Our team focuses on assessing the degradation of materials, which is a key factor in finding ways to develop materials and solutions enabling resource savings and higher operation performance for the materials entire life cycle. 

We specialize in friction, wear and fatigue control in wide range of applications, including inorganic and organic materials. These themes form the backbone of our projects: 

• Resource sufficiency via long lifecycle, facilitated by durable materials. 
• Energy efficiency via eliminating surface damages and power losses, as well as optimizing friction during operation. 
• Material and manufacturing solutions to support emerging technologies, such as electrification, hydrogen technologies and utilization of other alternative fuels. 
• Finding out the root causes for failures to enable the finding of better materials for the applications with complex requirements.  

Read more about our research:  

A day in the life of a Corrosion scientist -read what a typical day for looks like for your future colleague Andressa 

Corrosion in biomass power plants – | VTT News (vttresearch.com) 

Your responsibilities: 

• Act as a core group member in the research on material solutions supporting sustainable technologies, participating in experimental and possibly modelling work, depending on your background. 
• As a project group member or a project manager, you ensure that the defined tasks are performed on time and the results are delivered and reported with high quality.  
• Active participation in project planning and preparation, including active communication with customers and partners, as well as writing proposals together with your colleagues.  
• Actively engage with our customers, engage in sales, support in preparing our customer proposals and promote our research activities.
• Networking and acting as a thought leader in your area of expertise. 
• Communicating results impactfully in scientific publications and presentations, as well as with industry projects. 
• Finding solutions on how our experimental research can be utilised in computational materials science. 
• Conducting contract research projects for customer applications. 

Who we are looking for: 

• Deep understanding about engineering materials technology and surface related phenomena in tribology and a cross-scientific mindset. 
• Good general view on the field of relevant industries. 
• MSc or PhD in the field of tribology, engineering materials, material physics or surface science 
• As an experienced researcher, you may have established networks both in academia and industry and like to widen those nationally and globally.  
• Fluent written and spoken English, Finnish skills are an advantage.
• Ability to design test setups/modifications and series. 
• Experience or knowledge in funding applications and preparations. 

You have knowledge and background in the following topics:  

• Tribology (friction, wear and lubrication) and material science, and the characterisation methods involved. 
• Surface phenomena and material interaction as well as technologies applied to tribology, such as coatings, thin films and barrier layers. 
• Experience of hands-on experimental research, data analysis and/or computational modelling methods.  

As a person, we hope that you are: 

Practical in establishing experimental research and well-motivated for developing new approaches and concepts for the future. You are a team player who can also work independently, willing to innovate and eager on having new challenges and responsibilities in the field of tribology.You are an open-minded and innovative person with a vision of longer-term research needs. You have a customer-oriented mindset and you are eager to find solutions to customers’ challenges. 

With VTT, you’ll enjoy:  

• Visionary work in technology. We offer positions at the cutting-edge of technology and engineering from next generation microelectronics and quantum technology to automation and robotics, energy systems and more. Our research agenda is dedicated to creating sustainable growth by solving systemic and technological challenges, so your work will go towards creating real, positive impact. Read more about our strategy – the path of exponential hope. 
• Fascinating projects, excellent research environment. Our researchers get to work on a combination of cutting-edge academic research and applied customer projects, both locally and internationally. At VTT, you’ll have state-of-the-art research facilities at your disposal, our Materials Performance facility covers whole chain from material discovery to life-time management of material and components. 
• Great career opportunities, superb colleagues. At VTT, excellence in research is a strategic priority. We offer long-term positions and stable career paths in top-level research. People tend to stay with us over 10 years since there are always new roles and responsibilities to grow into. Collaborating in a cross-disciplinary community with superb colleagues is a source of learning, inspiration, and fun. 
• Support for your well-being. Our people are our main asset, so we take good care of them. We aim to nurture great team spirit and leadership and offer versatile well-being services to enable a good work–life balance. On top of 6 weeks of paid holidays, we offer exercise and culture benefits, hobby clubs, and voluntary well-being services such as meditation programmes and trainings on cognitive ergonomics. 

Apply now and join our community of brilliant minds! 

Please send your CV and application with your salary request via our recruitment system as soon as possible but at the latest by 22nd of September.  We will process applications as they come in, and fill in the position as soon as we find the right candidate.   

Interested and want to hear more? 

For further information, please contact Research Team Leader Vilma Ratia-Hanby, vilma.ratia-hanby@vtt.fi, +358 406 887 168 on 11.9. at 9-11 EET  or 19.9. at 13-15 EET.

We look forward to hearing from you! 

Apply between 6 September 2024 and 22 September 2024 23:59 (Europe/Helsinki)

Employment type: Full-time, Permanent

VTT

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time and turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help the society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have 80 years of experience of top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.

VTT – beyond the obvious.