Location: Huntsville, AL
Work Arrangement: On-Site
Employment Type: Direct Placement
Experience Level: Senior
Citizenship: U.S. Citizenship Required
Clearance: Ability to Obtain a U.S. Security Clearance Required
Position Overview
We are recruiting an experienced Senior Materials Scientist / Metallurgist for a direct placement opportunity in Huntsville, Alabama. This position provides technical leadership across materials development, process development, characterization, qualification, and production transition for advanced metal manufacturing technologies supporting aerospace and defense applications.
This is not simply an additive manufacturing engineering position.
The role requires a seasoned materials professional with deep, practical knowledge of metallurgy, powder-based processing, material characterization, and aerospace and defense qualification. The ideal candidate understands not only how to develop a promising material or manufacturing process, but also how to establish the technical rigor, documentation, process controls, and qualification evidence necessary to make that process repeatable and production-ready.
The Senior Materials Scientist / Metallurgist will serve as a senior technical resource to a team of early-career materials scientists and engineers. The role is primarily focused on technical leadership, mentorship, and process ownership, while remaining hands-on when necessary to investigate results, troubleshoot problems, evaluate data, and guide technical decisions.
A key focus of this position is helping transition advanced manufacturing technologies, including cold spray additive manufacturing, from development and demonstration into qualified aerospace and defense production.
Responsibilities
- Provide senior technical leadership in materials science, physical metallurgy, powder metallurgy, and metal additive manufacturing.
- Lead materials and manufacturing processes through development, characterization, process-window definition, testing, qualification, customer approval, and production acceptance.
- Establish and mature material and process qualification methodologies for aerospace, space, and defense applications.
- Guide the development of robust, repeatable manufacturing processes with appropriate controls, documentation, acceptance criteria, and traceability.
- Provide technical oversight and mentorship to materials scientists and engineers, including reviewing results, challenging assumptions, troubleshooting problems, and helping the team make sound engineering decisions.
- Support powder selection and characterization, deposition and process behavior, microstructural evaluation, post-processing, and structure-property analysis.
- Apply metallurgical laboratory techniques including metallography, SEM/EDS, mechanical testing, hardness testing, porosity and density assessment, and failure analysis.
- Evaluate relationships among feedstock, processing parameters, microstructure, defects, post-processing, and final material performance.
- Support a broad materials portfolio that may include aluminum, titanium, steels, nickel alloys, copper alloys, tungsten, tantalum, and other refractory material systems.
- Develop and review material specifications, process specifications, test plans, qualification plans, technical reports, and production acceptance criteria.
- Support root-cause investigations and corrective actions involving material or process performance.
- Work directly with customers and technical representatives from U.S. government agencies and major aerospace and defense prime contractors.
- Clearly explain and defend materials characterization, process controls, test methodologies, technical results, and qualification strategies during customer and technical reviews.
- Help strengthen the technical capabilities of the broader engineering organization through mentorship, disciplined engineering practices, and sound technical judgment.
Required Qualifications
- U.S. Citizenship required.
- Ability to obtain a U.S. security clearance.
- BS, MS, or PhD in Materials Science, Metallurgical Engineering, Materials Engineering, or a closely related discipline.
- Significant professional experience in materials science or metallurgy, preferably within aerospace, defense, space, or another highly regulated engineering environment.
- Strong practical understanding of physical metallurgy and structure-process-property relationships across multiple metallic alloy systems.
- Strong knowledge of powder metallurgy, including powder characterization, feedstock considerations, processing behavior, microstructure, defects, and resulting mechanical properties.
- Meaningful experience with metal additive manufacturing and associated material and process development and qualification requirements.
- Demonstrated experience taking a material or manufacturing process through development, characterization, process definition, testing, qualification, customer approval, and repeatable production.
- Practical familiarity with metallurgical laboratory methods, including metallography, SEM/EDS, mechanical testing, hardness testing, porosity and density measurement, and failure analysis.
- Experience developing or reviewing process specifications, qualification plans, test methods, acceptance criteria, and technical documentation.
- Ability to distinguish promising experimental results from a robust, controlled, and production-capable process.
- Strong technical communication skills and the ability to interact credibly with government and aerospace and defense customers.
- Ability and desire to mentor early-career engineers and scientists while remaining technically engaged.
Preferred Qualifications
- Working understanding of cold spray additive manufacturing, including powder selection, deposition behavior, post-processing, and metallurgical characterization.
- Extensive direct cold spray experience.
- Experience with NASA-STD-6030, DoD/MIL standards, aerospace material and process specifications, or equivalent qualification environments used by major aerospace and defense organizations.
- Experience supporting aerospace, defense, or space materials and manufacturing programs.
- Experience across multiple metallic alloy systems rather than specialization in a single alloy family.
- Prior technical leadership or management experience.
- Existing U.S. security clearance.
About the Opportunity
Advanced manufacturing programs increasingly require technologies to move beyond development and demonstration into qualification and repeatable production. That transition requires a high level of materials-science rigor, process discipline, technical judgment, and qualification expertise.
This position provides the opportunity to help establish the technical foundation necessary to make advanced manufacturing technologies, particularly cold spray additive manufacturing, repeatable, controlled, qualified, and trusted for aerospace and defense production.
The Senior Materials Scientist / Metallurgist will have significant influence on both the technology and the engineering organization developing it. The role is well suited for a senior technical professional who can recognize when results require further investigation, identify where additional characterization is needed, guide difficult materials and process decisions, and mentor engineers as programs move from experimentation toward disciplined production engineering.
Extensive cold spray experience is highly valuable but is not required for an otherwise exceptional candidate. A highly accomplished aerospace or defense metallurgist with strong powder metallurgy, metal additive manufacturing, and qualification experience may be an excellent fit. The role is equally suited to an exceptional senior technical leader who can become a trusted resource, mentor, and technical authority without requiring a primary focus on people management.
