Materials Engineer, Adhesives and Sealing
About the role
Adhesives and sealants hold Rivian vehicles together and keep water, dust, and fluids out of the battery, cabin, and electronics. As a Materials Engineer in the Failure Analysis and Materials Engineering team, you will work directly with our technical leads to qualify new adhesives and sealants, solve bonding and sealing issues, and turn test data into the specifications our engineers design and build to. In addition, you will work alongside with other subject matter experts in varieties of materials technologies and analytical techniques that share the same desire for adventures. This is a hands-on, lab-first role. Most of your week will be spent designing test plans, preparing specimens, running mechanical, thermal, and environmental tests, and reporting what the data says. Your work will reach every emission-free electric adventure vehicle, including R1, R2, and Commercial Van, to charging hardware, and accessories, and your curiosity, skills and dedication will help drive Rivan towards its goal of preserving the natural world for generations to come.
Responsibilities
- Plan and run laboratory testing of structural and semi-structural adhesives, pumpable sealants, formed-in-place and pre-cut gaskets, potting compounds, and thermally conductive adhesives and gap fillers used across battery, body, closures, electronics, and charging hardware.
- Execute mechanical testing at the material and joint level, including lap shear, peel, tensile and elongation, hardness, compression set, and compression stress relaxation.
- Characterize cure, thermal, and chemical behavior with DSC, TGA, DMA, FTIR, and rhe