R&D Battery Engineer

XL Batteries – R&D Battery Engineer

About Us

XL Batteries is a Massachusetts-based development stage company focused on long duration energy storage at the grid level. We are a growing, highly collaborative team currently developing a new chemistry for flow batteries at utility scale in our laboratory in Marlborough, MA. Our mission is to enable grid sustainability.

XL Batteries is an equal opportunity employer. We offer competitive salary and benefits, including healthcare, dental, vision, and a retirement plan.

About Our Location

Marlborough, MA is a small industrial city in central Massachusetts, surrounded by historic Massachusetts towns and within day-trip distance of the Berkshires,

White Mountains and Cape Cod. For those who prefer a more urban lifestyle, we are located directly off I-495 within easy commuting distance of Boston and Cambridge (30-40 minutes), Worcester (25 minutes), Nashua, NH (45 minutes) and Providence, RI (50 minutes).

About You

We are seeking ambitious & talented engineers who are looking to develop an industry leading storage technology and identify, frame and solve complex, challenging problems. We are looking for teammates who are collaborative and creative.

XL Batteries, is a fast paced, nimble startup where no job is too big or small, and where we strive to ask ourselves the hard questions as the company and the team grow.

Role Description

XL Batteries is developing a next generation flow battery for grid-scale energy storage. We seek creative, forward-thinking people to build, validate, and improve our battery systems. The Battery Engineer will work with others to achieve increasing levels of performance, reliability and durability in our battery and test new ideas for improving future designs. Experience with electrochemical testing and battery cycling is required. A deep understanding of flow battery or fuel cell design and operation is preferred. Applicants must show the ability to quickly and efficiently design, fabricate, test, iterate and improve upon new battery systems on the cell and stack level.

Responsibilities

• Work safely in a battery development shop and a chemistry laboratory
• Assemble and test various flow battery components and systems.
• Think critically about how to improve the system and battery performance with an eye to reliability, durability, and cost.
• Conduct various ex-situ and in-situ electrochemical tests (Battery Cycling, Cyclic Voltammetry, Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy) with our various electrochemical apparatus/devices.
• Record appropriate data, analyze, and report the results.
• Build mathematical models to analyze battery data for improving the performance of our product.
• Able to capably convert technical goals into effective work plans by generating and owning OKRs.
• Maintain a clean and safe work area.
• Manage waste streams and dispose of hazardous waste appropriately.

Requirements

• M.S. in Mechanical, Chemical, Electrical Engineering or related fields – a Ph.D. with a focus on electrochemistry is preferred.
• At least 2 years in an applied battery development environment. If academic, this should be reflected by high-impact publications showing expertise in the field.
• Strong understanding of electrochemistry and/or electrical engineering.
• Experience with flow batteries and battery testing fundamentals preferred, including experience developing testing scripts for battery cyclers (Arbin, Gamry, Biologic, MTI Corp, Neware).
• Highly motivated and self-driven individual with the ability to work independently and multi-task.
• A “maker's mindset”: comfortable bringing ideas quickly from paper to experiment, including building new experimental set-ups if needed.
• Comfortable with DFMEA.
• Prior experience with programming languages (python, C/C++, etc.) is a plus.
• Comfortable leading small teams of capable technicians.
• Strong written and oral communication skills required, including ability to interpret battery test results and communicate to team.
• Must have legal authorization to work in the United States.
• This is a full-time in-person position.