Materials Lab Engineer: Build & Validate Aerospace Alloys

Socket.dev; Centennial (CO); On-site; USD 107,000 - 168,000; Full time

Job summary

Boom is building a state-of-the-art materials lab to enable a supersonic jet engine program. You’ll design and stand up testing capabilities, specify equipment, hire lab techs, and define procedures linking testing to design data.

You’ll work with world-class scientists to run campaigns, generate traceable data, and ensure rigorous documentation. This startup‑like environment emphasizes hands‑on testing, metallography, SEM, and data automation.

Qualifications

• A degree in Materials Science, Metallurgy, Mechanical Engineering, or related with hands‑on real world experience and/or lab-focused research.
• Genuine hands‑on testing experience - you have personally gripped specimens, aligned load trains, mounted extensometers, and broken things on purpose
• Working knowledge of mechanical testing fundamentals and the ASTM standards that govern them (or the ability to ramp on them fast)
• Data skills beyond plotting: software automation and scripting for repeatable analysis, and an instinct for traceability
• Enough metallurgy to connect microstructure to properties - and curiosity to go deeper on superalloys
• Documentation habits that would survive an audit

Responsibilities

• Plan and execute mechanical test campaigns on aerospace alloys: tensile (room and elevated temperature), LCF/HCF fatigue, and creep/stress rupture
• Work shoulder-to-shoulder with lab technicians and senior M&P engineers - everyone preps, everyone tests, everyone documents
• Write and validate the lab's test procedures against ASTM standards - then improve them
• Build the data backbone: specimen tracking, test logs, raw data pipelines, and reduction scripts that turn test output into design-usable material data
• Support metallographic evaluation and SEM inspection - microstructure verification, fractography, and failure analysis on engine hardware
• Support allowables-style test programs: test matrices, traceability, and statistical treatment of material data
• Help commission new lab equipment and stand up new test capabilities from scratch
• Support NCR and root cause investigations with disciplined, documented methodology

Skills

Materials testing

Mechanical testing

Data scripting

Documentation

Traceability

Education

Bachelor's in Materials Science or Metallurgy or Mechanical Engineering

Tools

Test frames

Extensometers

SEM

Job description

Boom is building a state-of-the-art materials lab to enable a supersonic jet engine program. You’ll design and stand up testing capabilities, specify equipment, hire lab techs, and define procedures linking testing to design data.

You’ll work with world-class scientists to run campaigns, generate traceable data, and ensure rigorous documentation. This startup‑like environment emphasizes hands‑on testing, metallography, SEM, and data automation.