Ops Strategy Lead — AI & Materials Science

Periodic; Menlo Park, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 250,000 - 300,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Periodic Labs is seeking a high-ownership Business Operations leader in Menlo Park to connect research teams, model development, and strategic operations. You will help translate scientific progress into actionable roadmaps, resourcing, and hiring priorities within a fast-moving AI-enabled lab environment.

The role requires a graduate-level scientific background (physics/chemistry/materials) and 4+ years in strategy, ops, or product-related functions at tech or research organizations, with

Qualifications

• The ideal candidate has a graduate-level scientific background in physics, chemistry, materials science, or related field.
• 4+ years of experience in strategy, operations, product management, chief-of-staff, or similar function in technical/AI org.
• Ability to read scientific literature and translate learnings into operational decisions.
• Strong analytical, structured thinking and clear communication.
• Excellent ability to influence across researchers and executives.

Responsibilities

• Support the operating rhythm of the research organization — research planning cycles, milestone tracking, experiment prioritization, and cross-team coordination between AI and physical sciences
• Design and maintain systems that give leadership real-time visibility into research progress, resource utilization, and emerging risks across the model development and lab science roadmaps
• Partner with the Head of Research and Principal Scientists to translate long-horizon scientific goals into quarterly operating plans, resourcing decisions, and hiring priorities
• Identify and remove the organizational, process, and tooling bottlenecks that slow down researchers and scientists — acting as a force multiplier for the people doing the core work
• Coordinate compute, lab equipment, and infrastructure resource allocation across research projects, working closely with infra and lab operations leads
• Serve as the operational link between research outputs and product development — ensuring scientific milestones translate into clear product implications and that product needs are legible to research teams
• Drive the product planning process in close partnership with founders and product leads: roadmap development, prioritization frameworks, and cross-functional alignment
• Build the processes and artifacts (roadmaps, decision logs, spec templates, review cadences) that make the product-science collaboration scalable as we grow
• Lead or support evaluation design, benchmark development, and model assessment processes that connect scientific capability to real-world product requirements
• Lead special projects and strategic analyses that don’t fit neatly into any existing function: competitive landscape assessments, build/buy/partner decisions, new capability evaluations
• Support external partnerships, collaborations, and customer engagements that sit at the boundary of research and commercial — from scoping to execution

Skills

Strategy

Operations

Product management

Chief of staff

AI

Education

Physics

Chemistry

Materials science

Computational science

Quantitative discipline

Bachelor's degree or higher

Job description

Periodic Labs is seeking a high-ownership Business Operations leader in Menlo Park to connect research teams, model development, and strategic operations. You will help translate scientific progress into actionable roadmaps, resourcing, and hiring priorities within a fast-moving AI-enabled lab environment.

The role requires a graduate-level scientific background (physics/chemistry/materials) and 4+ years in strategy, ops, or product-related functions at tech or research organizations, with