Sensor Characterization Co-Op

Laminar, Inc.; Somerville (MA); On-site; USD 70,000 - 95,000; Full time

Job summary

Laminar, Inc. is seeking a hands-on lab-focused analyst to design testing procedures for new sensors, prepare samples, and analyze data.

You will work closely with the sensor R&D team to characterize performance and refine calibration procedures for the sensing stack. The role emphasizes rigorous experimentation, documentation, and collaboration with engineering teams to advance real-time chemical sensing on factory floors.

Qualifications

• Hands-on lab work and data-driven experimentation.
• Ability to design and run tests to characterize sensor performance.
• Strong analytical skills for data interpretation and reporting.
• Willingness to work across chemistry, physics, and engineering domains.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with sensor R&D to design and execute testing procedures.
• Prepare samples and run concentration tests following lab safety protocols.
• Analyze data and present results to engineering teams.
• Develop and refine calibration procedures for sensing stack.
• Maintain lab notebooks and SOPs to ensure reproducibility.

Skills

Lab testing

Data analysis

Experiment design

Attention to detail

Hands-on engineering tasks

Education

Degree in Chemistry, Physics, or Engineering

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Job description

Machines learned to understand language. We're teaching them to understand matter.

Forty percent of global manufacturing happens through physical and chemical processes inside pipes, tanks, and reactors. Despite decades of industrial automation, much of what happens inside them remains remarkably invisible. Manufacturing is the most ubiquitous and foundational sector in global economy, yet the way factories are fundamentally run have used the same control philosophies, manual operations, and legacy software for the past 60 years.

Laminar deploys state-of-the-art patented sensors and edge hardware directly into live production environments, generating data that didn’t previously exist to build foundation models deployed in factory floors that understand chemistry, composition, quality, and material state in real time. We use that understanding to run autonomy and rethink how things are made.

The last generation of industrial automation taught machines to execute instructions reliably. The next will teach them to understand the processes they control and run autonomously, adaptively, and agentically: higher quality, safety, more efficiently, sustainably, and productively.

That future is already taking shape. Today, Laminar works with 7 of the world’s 10 largest food and beverage manufacturers and operates across hundreds of factories globally across six continents. Our systems have materially reduced waste, cut manufacturing downtime, saved water, chemicals, energy, and helped prevent safety and quality failures. Our technology has gained international recognition, from being selected as a 2026 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer, Gold 2026 Edison Award, Unilever Startup of the Year, to Innovator Awards by both Coca-Cola and AB InBev, and more.

We are backed by tier-one investors in physical AI to make intelligent, self-improving production the new standard for industry.

Join us to build what makes matter intelligible, and the intelligible controllable.

As new sensing technologies are integrated into our stack, we need rigorous testing and analysis to improve sensor design, to establish noise and drift characteristics, and to find Limits of Detection (LOD) across industry-relevant chemicals. You will own sensor testing: designing experiments, preparing samples, collecting and analyzing data, and presenting results to the engineering teams.

What You Will Do

• Collaborate with our sensor R&D team to design testing procedures, carry out tests, and analyze data to characterize new sensor performance
• Support customer-driven use-case exploration, running material fingerprinting and concentration tests, analyzing data and building customer-facing slides
• Prepare samples at known concentrations, serial dilutions and emulsifications following lab-safety protocols
• Use statistical methods to calculate LODs for industrially relevant chemicals
• Focus on experiment reproducibility by maintaining a lab notebook, writing and refining Standard Operating Procedures, and organizing raw data for future comparison
• Design, test and refine calibration procedures for the new sensing stack

About You

• Degree or pursuing a degree in Chemistry, Physics, Engineering or a related field
• Detail-oriented and able to follow (and constructively critique) experimental procedure
• Willingness to get your hands dirty on a wide variety of engineering and technician tasks to help us build better sensors and solve bigger problems Required
• Coursework or experience in chemistry, physics, optical engineering, or a related field
• Comfort with hands-on lab work and running structured experiments
• Statistics and data analysis skills (Python, MATLAB, or similar)

Preferred

• Familiarity with spectroscopy and electrical impedance measurement is a plus but not required
• Dynamic and inclusive work environment
• Opportunities for growth and professional development
• Access to Greentown Labs extensive network of cleantech startups

There are many easier places to work on AI. Laminar is for people who want the hardest version of their discipline. Models here must survive contact with physics. Hardware must survive years of continuous industrial operation. Software must integrate with machinery built decades ago. Everything we build ultimately has to work on a factory floor.

We believe exceptional people should be given exceptional amounts of ownership. At Laminar, you will have the context to form your own view, the permission to challenge ours, and the resources to pursue the right answers, whatever technical or organizational boundaries stand in the way. There are few layers between identifying something important and changing it.

We're fortunate to work with a small polymathic team of hardware and software engineers, chemists, AI researchers, factory operators, and go-to-market wizards who are unusually capable, curious, rigorous, ambitious, and low-ego. If that sounds like you, we’d love to meet you.

Our Interview Process

1. Phone screen with Laminar HR/Recruiter (15-20 minutes)

2. Intro call with Hiring Manager (30 minutes)

3. On-site interview, overview of tech, and interview/presentation with the Hiring Manager and a few team members. Depending on the role, a skills exercise that should take no longer than an hour to prep, would be sent ahead of time. We record your skills exercise to share with any team members who could not join the interview and/or with Founder's ahead of their Founder's Interview. If you are not local, we can conduct this virtually.

4. Finalists for Full-Time positions will have a Founder's Interview in-person

Final steps:

Two professional references are requested, ideally one from your current organization and one who served as your Manager

If an Offer Letter is extended, a Background check is conducted

Laminar is committed to building a diverse and inclusive team. Even if you are unsure you are a perfect fit, we strongly encourage you to apply! If you're ready to play a key role in scaling a game-changing company that’s transforming the industrial sector and advancing sustainability, we want to hear from you.

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