Research Scientist, Soft Matter Simulations

The role

You will apply soft matter physics and molecular simulation expertise to accelerate the discovery and optimization of complex soft matter systems. You will use modeling, mesoscale simulation, analytical theory, and agentic AI systems to investigate polymers, colloids, surfactants, gels, liquid crystals, and formulated fluid systems.

What you will do

• Implement, extend, and deploy atomistic, coarse-grained, and mesoscale simulation capabilities
• Engineer simulation software with modern scientific libraries on HPC and cloud infrastructure
• Translate simulation outputs into descriptors and datasets for ML models
• Build predictive models to guide formulation selection and optimization
• Develop and deploy agentic AI systems for autonomous scientific discovery
• Communicate physical insights, model limitations, and recommendations to collaborators

Required qualifications

• PhD in chemical engineering, physics, materials science, chemistry, or a related field (or master's with equivalent experience)
• Strong background in soft matter physics covering polymers, colloids, surfactants, gels, or liquid crystals
• Hands-on expertise in atomistic and coarse-grained MD
• Working knowledge of at least two of: DPD or other mesoscale methods, Monte Carlo, SCFT, field theoretic simulation, or liquid state theory
• Strong Python scientific software development skills
• Fluency with version control, testing, code review, and packaging
• Experience running and automating simulations at scale on HPC or cloud
• Experience integrating computational predictions into experimental or closed-loop optimization workflows
• Good familiarity with agentic AI systems, autonomous scientific workflows, or simulation-aware agents

Nice to have

• Experience with a compiled language (C++, Rust, or Fortran) for performance-critical simulation code
• GPU acceleration via JAX or PyTorch
• Contributions to open source simulation packages such as LAMMPS, HOOMD-blue, GROMACS, or OpenMM
• Experience developing ML potentials or applying AI/ML to soft matter simulation data and molecular property prediction
• Experience building agents that reason over or orchestrate simulation workflows
• Experience coupling simulation to active learning and Bayesian optimization pipelines
• Publication record in soft matter theory and simulation

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• Employer-paid life and disability insurance
• Flexible time off with generous company wide holidays
• Paid parental leave
• Educational assistance program
• Commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees
• Company subsidized lunch program

About the company

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science.