The Role
Act as the CTO's right hand for R&D and Technology, owning program management, roadmaps, milestone tracking, dependency management across chemistry and engineering workstreams, translating between technical teams and business stakeholders, preparing executive/investor materials, and building operating cadence and decision processes without adding bureaucracy.
Summary Generated by Built In
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
- 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
Nice to have:
What we Offer
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.
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
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).
Skills Required
- 5-8 years in technical program management, R&D operations, or chief-of-staff supporting a technical/scientific executive
- Track record of building operating rhythm for complex, multi-workstream technical programs (standups, roadmaps, milestone tracking, follow-through)
- Fluency in chemistry and R&D workstreams enough to identify dependencies and blockers (chemistry, hydrometallurgy, separations, analytical)
- Ability to translate business/commercial priorities into technical roadmaps and translate technical progress for executive stakeholders
- Experience prepping materials and talking points for board, executive, and investor updates
- Skilled at surfacing risk early, resolving ambiguous ownership, and preventing decision stall
- High trust, low ego, discreet; able to be operational backbone without creating bottlenecks
- Experience in materials science, chemistry, battery, mining, or hardware/deep-tech environments
- PhD in chemistry, chemical engineering, or materials science
- Direct lab, process engineering, or R&D execution experience
- Startup or scale-up experience building processes from scratch
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The Company
What We Do
Phoenix Tailings is a rare earth metals production company dedicated to restoring U.S. industrial independence by building domestic refining capacity. The company aims to redefine the industry as the first fully clean mining and metals producer, using sustainable, net-zero technology to transform mining waste (tailings) into critical rare earth metals and alloys essential for modern technology, defense, and green energy infrastructure.
