Researcher II

Location: Santa Clara, CA • Full-time, Hybrid

About the role

With a focus on Mobility, Operational Excellence, Value to our Customers, and vehicle electrification, Nissan is driving innovation in next-generation mobility solutions. From advanced EV platforms to cutting-edge battery technologies, Nissan continues to push the boundaries of engineering to deliver sustainable and intelligent transportation.

The Battery R&D team in Silicon Valley is a multidisciplinary group that integrates materials science, electrochemistry, and data analytics to accelerate next-generation battery development. The team focuses on bridging material-level understanding with cell-level performance through a combination of experimental research and data-driven approaches. Working closely with global partners across the United States and Japan, the team translates high-quality experimental insights into actionable engineering solutions and system-level understanding.

Responsibilities

• Design and evaluate battery materials, including cathodes, anodes, electrolytes, and interfaces.
• Analyze relationships between material structure, composition, and electrochemical properties.
• Develop hypotheses and experimental approaches to improve battery performance.
• Conduct materials characterization and cell-level evaluation activities.
• Design and execute electrochemical testing, including capacity, resistance, and degradation assessments.
• Identify performance variations and failure mechanisms driven by material properties.
• Quantitatively link material properties to battery cell behavior and performance.
• Structure, analyze, and visualize experimental datasets.
• Collaborate with modeling teams to interpret results and extract meaningful parameters.
• Contribute to data-driven understanding of battery performance and degradation.
• Develop and refine experimental plans, procedures, and testing methodologies.
• Document and communicate findings through technical reports and presentations.
• Contribute to patents, publications, and technical knowledge generation.
• Support materials synthesis activities, including solid-state and solution-based methods.
• Contribute to laboratory automation and high-throughput experimentation initiatives.
• Improve experimental workflows and data acquisition efficiency.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree and 5-10 years of relevant experience; OR Master's degree and 2-5 years of relevant experience; OR Ph.D. and 0-2 years of relevant experience.
• Degree in Materials Science, Chemistry, Electrochemistry, Chemical Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong understanding of electrochemistry and battery fundamentals.
• Ability to interpret relationships between material properties and battery performance.
• Hands-on experience with battery cell assembly, testing, and electrochemical analysis.
• Experience using data analysis tools such as Python, MATLAB, or equivalent platforms.
• Demonstrated capability in hypothesis-driven research and problem solving.

Desired Qualifications

• Experience with materials synthesis techniques, including solid-state, sol-gel, or co-precipitation methods.
• Experience using materials characterization techniques such as XRD, SEM, XPS, or similar tools.
• Knowledge of battery degradation mechanisms and lifetime analysis.
• Experience collaborating with modeling and simulation teams.
• Familiarity with large-scale or structured experimental datasets.
• Experience with laboratory automation or high-throughput experimentation.
• Demonstrated innovation through patents, publications, or product contributions.

Pay

Annual salary range: $108,400 – $230,590. This range represents the minimum and maximum base salary rates for this role. Actual base salary generally falls within this range and reflects an employee’s unique skills, work experience, education, work location, and market norms.