Your Impact at LILA
Lila Sciences is hiring a Director, Product, Physical Sciences: a strategic, cross-functional product leader who shapes the vision, roadmap, and execution for platforms that accelerate scientific discovery and product development. Reporting to the Head of Physical Science Product, you will lead product strategy and delivery across capabilities at the intersection of physical science, simulation and physics-based modeling, lab automation, data and ML, and scientific intelligence.
This role requires strong leadership, crisp prioritization, and the ability to translate complex technical and scientific work into clear product direction and measurable outcomes for internal teams, partners, and customers. You will be deeply customer-facing, serving as a trusted technical and product voice with prospects and partners, and shaping proposals, driving commercial conversations, and closing deals that bring Lila's Physical Sciences platform to market.
What You'll Be Building
- Set the long-term product vision, roadmap, and portfolio priorities for Lila's Physical Sciences portfolio.
- Define product strategy and target product profiles (TPPs) for physical-science workflows: materials design, formulation, characterization, reliability, scale-up.
- Drive product execution from concept to launch across physical sciences, simulation, automation, data engineering, and ML.
- Represent product to executives, scientific leaders, partners, and customers as the senior external voice for the domain.
- Own commercial outcomes end-to-end: opportunity shaping, proposal development, deal closure, and revenue for the domain.
- Define success metrics and milestones (technical, product, commercial) and report progress clearly to leadership.
What You'll Need to Succeed
- MS, PhD, or equivalent experience in physical sciences (materials science, chemistry, physics, chemical or mechanical engineering, related fields).
- 7+ years of product leadership (PM, Group PM, Product Lead) building and launching complex technical products: scientific software or hardware, simulation platforms, data products, ML-enabled systems.
- Deep understanding of physical-science R&D workflows: experimental iteration, instrumentation, data quality, scale-up constraints.
- Strong familiarity with one or more of:
- Strong executive communication: clear storytelling and decisions legible to technical and non-technical audiences.
- Highly collaborative leadership style; influences across research, engineering, operations, and commercial teams.
- Output- and impact-focused: driven by delivered results against mission and program goals.
Bonus Points For
- Track record defining and executing TPPs and product strategies for scientific platforms (software + hardware + workflows), not just standalone applications.
- Experience building products at the intersection of LLMs/agentic systems and technical or scientific workflows, with a point of view on where these tools actually change throughput and decision quality in physical-science R&D.
- Direct experience with external partners or customers in technical domains (materials, energy, aerospace, manufacturing, industrials).
- Deep domain knowledge in simulations, semiconductors, or formulations.
Compensation
We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.
U.S. Benefits. Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.
International Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.
About LILA
Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.
LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.
Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.
We’re All In
Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.
Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.
A Note to Agencies
Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.
Skills Required
- MS, PhD, or equivalent experience in physical sciences
- 7+ years of product leadership experience
- Deep understanding of physical-science R&D workflows
- Strong executive communication skills
- Highly collaborative leadership style
What We Do
Lila is a technology company pioneering the application of artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the scientific method.
