Materials Engineer - Ceramics / Piezoelectric Manufacturing

Job Description

Job Description

PZT / Ceramic Materials Engineer

Location: Bellefonte, PA (on-site) | Type: [Direct hire, full-time] 

About the Opportunity
A market-leading manufacturer of specialty piezoelectric ceramics — in business since 1979, serving defense, medical, automotive, and commercial markets — is adding a materials engineer to support its textured ceramic program and PZT production. This is a hands-on role in a vertically integrated facility where you own work from powder through finished device, with exposure to advanced piezoceramic development alongside a nearby university research lab.

What You'll Do

• Support development and scale-up of the textured ceramic program, bridging lab-scale process work into production
• Provide day-to-day materials and process engineering support to PZT production: powder processing, milling, calcination, forming, and sintering
• Troubleshoot process and yield issues on the floor; drive root-cause analysis and corrective action
• Characterize materials and finished devices using SEM/ESEM, EDS, and complementary techniques; interpret and report results
• Support post-sinter operations including electroding and poling, and evaluate dielectric and piezoelectric properties against spec
• Develop, document, and maintain SOPs, process parameters, and work instructions in an ISO 9001:2015 environment
• Partner with production, quality, and engineering on new product introduction and customer-specific formulations
• [Contribute to customer- and government-funded development programs, including technical documentation and data reporting]

What You Need

• BS in Materials Science & Engineering, Ceramic Engineering/Science, or a closely related field (Ceramics, Metallurgy, Chemical Engineering, Solid State/Applied Physics, Chemistry with solid-state emphasis)
• 3+ years of relevant experience; strong internship, co-op, or undergraduate research in ceramics processing will be considered in place of full-time experience
• Hands-on experience with ceramic powder processing — milling, slurry preparation, casting or pressing, binder burnout, sintering
• Familiarity with piezoelectric materials (PZT, PMN-PT, PMN-PZ-PT, barium titanate) strongly preferred
• Working knowledge of materials characterization: SEM/ESEM, EDS, XRD, particle size analysis
• Comfortable in a hands-on production environment with lab and hazard safety awareness
• Clear technical writing and documentation skills

Nice to Have

• Experience with textured or templated grain growth ceramics
• Tape casting and thin-film ceramic fabrication
• Dielectric and piezoelectric property measurement (d33, impedance analysis, poling)
• Statistical analysis, DOE, Six Sigma or Lean exposure
• MATLAB, SolidWorks, or computational materials modeling