Research Scientist I/II, AI for Process Engineering
As a Research Scientist I/II in the Physical Sciences division at Lila Sciences, you will design and develop intelligent agent-driven systems to enable AI-accelerated and AI-orchestrated process engineering across various industrial applications. Your primary mission will be to create methods that allow AI agents to reason about, design, simulate, optimize, and operate complex physical and chemical processes using existing or machine learning-driven process engineering tools. This role focuses on building agentic infrastructures that facilitate AI systems in planning and executing multi-step process engineering workflows, including process synthesis, flowsheet generation, steady-state and dynamic simulation, control strategy design, and techno-economic evaluation. Your contributions will directly influence how Lila’s scientific superintelligence performs autonomous process engineering to address real-world challenges.
In this position, you will architect and implement frameworks that support comprehensive process engineering workflows, encompassing process setup, simulation, optimization, and analysis. You will develop AI agents capable of autonomously planning, executing, and iterating on process engineering tasks using existing tools such as steady-state and dynamic simulators, optimizers, and data systems. Your work will involve exploring advanced tasks like process intensification, control co-design, real-time optimization, and closed-loop learning from operational data. Additionally, you will enhance the robustness, interpretability, and reproducibility of agent-driven process engineering workflows by building internal tools for debugging, observability, validation, and auditability. Collaboration with interdisciplinary teams will be essential to apply agentic process engineering across a broad range of industrial applications.
The ideal candidate will possess a PhD or equivalent experience in Chemical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, Systems Engineering, or a closely related field. You should have research experience in method development for process engineering, demonstrated by a strong publication record or established industry experience. Hands-on experience with process simulation and optimization tools, including steady-state and dynamic modeling, is required. Proficiency in Python and scientific/engineering computing ecosystems is essential, along with experience integrating external engineering tools or simulators into automated workflows via APIs, scripting interfaces, or custom wrappers. Familiarity with distributed systems, high-performance computing environments, cloud platforms, or scalable compute infrastructure is also necessary.
We offer competitive compensation, including bonus potential and generous early equity. The expected base salary range for this role is $176,000 to $304,000 USD per year, with the final offer reflecting your unique background, expertise, and impact.
Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves. LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, we encourage you to apply.