9.7. Scientific Chief of Staff

Job Description

Job Description

About Phoenix Tailings  

Phoenix Tailings is a U.S.-based rare earth metals company building the most technologically advanced rare earth manufacturing platform in the world. The company develops and deploys breakthrough technologies across chemistry, industrial hardware, and digital infrastructure to produce rare earth metals and critical materials domestically at lower cost, higher efficiency, and greater scale.

We operate a fully integrated rare earth production platform spanning extraction, separation, refining, and metallization with a zero waste and zero emissions philosophy. The company is focused on restoring America's leadership in critical minerals and building the foundation for a secure domestic supply chain powering defense, energy, robotics, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing.

 

Why Phoenix Tailings  

At Phoenix, we believe nothing great is ever accomplished alone - or without the passion of people who push and motivate one another. You’ll be joining a team building the foundational infrastructure for the modern world , developing entirely new ways to produce rare earth and critical metals domestically, cleanly, and at scale. 

 

Our Values:   

● You are only crazy if you are wrong, it’s ok to be wrong

● Lead with Compassion

● Be Resourceful

● Listen

● Hustle

 

About the Role

Our Technology and R&D organization - chemistry, hydrometallurgy, separations, analytical science, and the broader technology function - is led by our CTO. We're hiring a Chief of Staff to be his right hand: owning project management across R&D and Technology, keeping the team aligned on priorities, and serving as the connective tissue between the science and the business. This is a dedicated role for the CTO's organization - distinct from our company-wide Chief of Staff function, which supports the CEO.

 

This is a technical program management and organizational role, not a bench-science role. You'll need enough fluency in the chemistry to know how the pieces fit together - where a delay in one workstream blocks another, and where a business priority should change what R&D works on next.

What you will do

• Serve as the CTO's day-to-day right hand - managing his priorities, prepping for cross-functional and executive conversations, and closing the loop on commitments after they’re made
• Own project management and operating cadence across R&D and Technology: standups, roadmap reviews, milestone tracking, and the discipline that keeps commitments visible and on track
• Track dependencies across Deep R&D (chemistry, hydrometallurgy, separations, analytical) and the broader Technology function - you need to understand how the technical pieces come together well enough to know when one workstream’s delay is another’s blocker
• Translate in both directions: turn business, commercial, and operations priorities into a technical roadmap the team can execute against, and translate technical progress into language the rest of the business and executive team can act on
• Partner with the VP of Technology and other technical leads to surface risk early, resolve ambiguous ownership, and keep decisions from stalling
• Prepare materials and talking points for board, executive, and investor updates on technical progress
• Build the process the org doesn’t have yet — meeting hygiene, documentation, decision tracking, escalation paths — without adding bureaucracy to a fast-moving lab environment

Who you are

• 5–8 years in technical program management, R&D operations, or a chief-of-staff-style role supporting a technical or scientific executive/organization
• Experience in materials science, chemistry, battery, mining, or hardware/deep-tech environments strongly preferred
• Track record of building the operating rhythm for complex, multi-workstream technical programs — not just tracking a spreadsheet, but creating the cadence and follow-through that didn’t exist before
• Enough technical/scientific fluency to follow how a chemistry-heavy R&D organization’s workstreams connect and depend on each other
• Skilled at translating between scientific/technical teams and commercial or executive stakeholders
• High trust, low ego, discreet — you’ll see the full picture of technical strategy before most of the company does
• Comfortable being the operational backbone for a technical leader deep in the science — you create rigor without becoming a bottleneck

Nice to have:

• PhD in chemistry, chemical engineering, or materials science
• Direct lab, process engineering, or R&D execution experience
• Startup or scale-up experience where you built process rather than inherited it

What we Offer

This pay range reflects best estimate for the total cash compensation which includes salary + discretionary bonus for this role. Total package  may vary based on experience and qualifications.

Pay Range: $165,000- $215,000 total cash compensation plus equity

• Healthcare: 100% Medical, dental, and vision coverage for employee.

• Stock Options: Ownership in a fast-growing venture-backed company. 

• Time Off: Unlimited PTO. 

• Learning: Learning and development opportunities to grow your skills and career. 

At Phoenix Tailings, we have an open culture that values learning, and we are looking to grow the team with enthusiastic individuals who share our vision of sustainable mining.  

 

Phoenix Tailings, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity Employer, and we value diversity at all levels. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age, disability or genetic information, or any other applicable protected characteristics, and these characteristics will not be a factor for consideration of any work-related decisions (including but not limited to hiring, firing, compensation, and discipline). 

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses and identifying potential inconsistencies or verification signals in application materials based on available information. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.