Physical Vapor Deposition Researcher — Lead Engineer

About the role

This role is part of Advanced Concepts and Enterprise Engineering (ACE), supporting Blue Origin’s mission of millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth. The team fosters innovation and drives engineering workflows of the future, shared solutions and standards, simplicity and lower costs, and manufacturable design.

Responsibilities

• Develop and optimize PVD processes (thermal evaporation, co-evaporation, sputtering) for perovskite absorber layers, charge-transport layers, and transparent conductive oxides (TCOs)
• Drive innovation for new processes to improve device performance
• Design deposition recipes for different materials (e.g., multi-source co-evaporation recipes) for film deposition
• Specify, commission, and qualify vacuum deposition equipment for perovskite-specific requirements (source types, substrate heating, in-situ monitoring)
• Develop in-situ process monitoring and feedback control strategies (QCM, optical reflectometry, residual gas analysis)
• Establish statistical process control (SPC) for critical film properties such as thickness uniformity, composition, crystallinity, resistivity, surface roughness
• Lead DOE campaigns to map process-structure-property relationships and define robust process windows
• Collaborate with the team to translate layer specifications into deposition recipes with appropriate tolerances
• Mentor and direct the work of 2 associate deposition researchers
• Develop and maintain process documentation, equipment maintenance protocols, and safety procedures for vacuum systems
• Analyze film characterization data (XRD, SEM, AFM, XPS, ellipsometry) to correlate process parameters with film quality

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or related field
• 5+ years of experience in vacuum thin-film deposition for photovoltaic, semiconductor, or optoelectronic applications
• Expert-level knowledge of thermal evaporation and/or sputtering process physics (nucleation, growth kinetics, film stress, morphology control)
• Demonstrated experience with multi-source co-evaporation or sequential deposition of multi-component films
• Hands-on experience with vacuum system design, operation, troubleshooting, and maintenance (load-locks, cryo/turbo pumps, source design)
• Proficiency with thin-film characterization techniques (XRD, SEM, profilometry, ellipsometry, 4-point probe)

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with vapor-deposited perovskite films (co-evaporation of organic halides and metal halides)
• Experience with hybrid sequential deposition methods (vapor-assisted solution processing)
• Knowledge of TCO deposition (ITO, FTO, AZO) by sputtering for photovoltaic applications
• Experience with in-situ optical monitoring or spectroscopic ellipsometry during growth
• Experience managing or mentoring junior researchers in a lab environment
• Familiarity with perovskite degradation mechanisms and how deposition conditions affect stability
• Familiarity with degradation of perovskite solar cells in the outer space environment
• Publication record in vacuum-deposited perovskite or related thin-film PV technologies
• Track record of scaling deposition processes from small-area R&D to larger substrate formats

Pay

Base Pay Range for WA applicants is $121,023.00 – $169,432.20. Other site ranges may differ.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, vision, basic and supplemental life insurance
• Paid parental leave
• Short- and long-term disability
• 401(k) with a company match of up to 5%
• Education Support Program
• Stock options for all regular employees (working at least 20 hours/week)
• Paid Time Off: Up to four (4) weeks per year based on weekly scheduled hours
• Up to 14 company-paid holidays