Staff Scientist, R&D Process & Materials Characterization Full-time

Staff Scientist, R&D Process & Materials Characterization

We are searching for the best talent to join our Vision team as a Staff Scientist, R&D Process & Materials Characterization located in Jacksonville, Florida.

Fueled by innovation at the intersection of biology and technology, we're developing the next generation of smarter, less invasive, more personalized treatments.

Are you passionate about improving and expanding on the possibilities of vision treatments? Ready to join a team that's reimagining how vision is improved? Our Vision team solves the toughest health challenges. Help combine cutting-edge insights, science, technology, and people to encourage eye care professionals and patients to proactively protect, correct and enhance healthy sight for life. Our products and services address these needs – from the pediatric to aging eye – in a patient's lifetime.

Your unique talents will help patients on their journey to wellness.

Purpose: We are recruiting a strong individual contributor who will have responsibility for the development and implementation of new process and materials characterization techniques, new equipment identification or development, and test method development within the R&D Operations platform. The individual will drive innovation of soft materials characterization. This person will work as a technical expert in a highly collaborative environment and will use fundamentals of materials science, polymer chemistry, physical chemistry, and engineering to drive innovation, facilitate improvements, implement corrections, and lead risk management and mitigation. The individual will lead the development of new instrumentation and measurement techniques (both internal and external collaborations) to investigate the role of monomer and polymer compositions on final in vitro material properties and performance of Class II and Class III medical devices. Successful characterization and optimization of new materials, methods, and measurement techniques using designed experiments, problem solving, and decision-making making tools are critical to ensure efficient development.

You will:

• Project Management – provide timely and accurate reporting on project activities to peers and leadership.
• Coordinate multi-functional teams of scientists, engineers and/or technicians as necessary to achieve project completion.
• Lead research assignments involving projects of major magnitude and scope.
• Pursue opportunities to unlock new ways to creatively and innovatively tackle business problems that impact processes, material and method capabilities, and the team.
• Excel at a high technical expertise level involving planning development and design of materials, equipment, processes, and/or methods within lab and pilot scale environments.
• Present at internal forums and publish in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
• Develop patent protected science-based innovations to enhance visual performance.
• Collaborate with other scientists and engineers to accelerate development and launch of products by creating novel material characterization methods necessary to develop next-generation ophthalmic materials.
• Work with third party suppliers, external collaborators, and an interdisciplinary technical team.
• Apply design of experiments; data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation; conduct literature and patent searches; organization and assimilation of literature search results.
• Have excellent communication and interpersonal skills required.
• Have strong analytical approach to problem solving to deliver innovative solutions.
• Track, trend, develop, and implements equipment and/or method improvements that will increase method capability, efficiency, safety, and/or equipment reliability.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Science, Engineering, or a related technical field; Master's or PhD highly preferred 8+ years of relevant experience with a Bachelor's degree, 5+ years with a Master's, or 3+ years with a Ph.D. in a relevant Post-Doc or Industry position.
• Position requires knowledge in polymer physical chemistry and determination of structure-property relationships. Highly preferred experience with hydrogel materials, solvated polymer networks, soft material surface characterization, and/or investigation of polymer-polymer or polymer-solvent interactions.
• Candidate must have extensive experience with soft materials physical properties characterization, including one or more of the following: mechanical characterization (e.g. DMA, nanoindentation, rheology), scattering techniques (e.g. DLS/SLS, neutron scattering, X-ray scattering) and/or microscopy (e.g. optical, electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy).
• Previous experience with instrumentation design, development, and validation preferred.
• Experience with statistical analysis software (Minitab, JMP, etc.) required.
• Must be detail-oriented, highly organized, and able to manage multiple tasks.
• Must have the ability to work individually (independently) as well as on a team.
• Availability to work full time (40 hours/week).
• Currently authorized to work in the U.S.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is: $105,000-$160,000.

Additional Description for Pay Transparency: Subject to the terms of their respective plans, employees and/or eligible dependents are eligible to participate in the following Company sponsored employee benefit programs: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, business accident insurance, and group legal insurance. Subject to the terms of their respective plans, employees are eligible to participate in the Company's consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)). This position is eligible to participate in the Company's long-term incentive program. Subject to the terms of their respective policies and date of hire, Employees are eligible for the following time off benefits: Vacation –120 hours per calendar year Sick time – 40 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Washington –56 hours per calendar year Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays –13 days per calendar year Work, Personal and Family Time – up to 40 hours per calendar year Parental Leave – 480 hours within one year of the birth/adoption/foster care of a child Condolence Leave – 30 days for an immediate family member: 5 days for an extended family member Caregiver Leave – 10 days Volunteer Leave – 4 days Military Spouse Time-Off – 80 hours