Benefits:

Health insurance

Opportunity for advancement

Paid time off

Relocation bonus

Vision insurance

401(k) matching

Dental insurance

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