СШАLab Manager
6 дн. назад
СШАSeniorOnsite
equipment commissioningmethod developmentquality assurancedata workflows
Manage and lead the analytical laboratory supporting pilot plant operations in minerals processing.
О компании
- Mariana Minerals is a software-first, vertically integrated minerals company on a mission to supply the critical minerals powering modern energy, AI, and defense technologies. We’re reimagining the minerals supply chain by combining deep industry expertise with advanced software, automation, and data-driven decision-making.
- Everyone Gets Home Safe. We never put speed or cost ahead of people.
- Extreme Ownership. We take full responsibility for outcomes, relentlessly driving toward solutions.
- Engineer Out Requirements, then Automate. We simplify, optimize, and then automate for scale.
- Share Your Legos. We collaborate openly, share knowledge, and empower each other to build bigger, better solutions.
Обязанности
- Mariana Minerals is seeking a highly organized and technically strong Lab Manager to build and lead the analytical laboratory supporting our DSM Pilot Plant in Houston. The DSM pilot couples a high temperature pyrometallurgical section with a downstream hydrometallurgical refining section, so the laboratory has to handle everything from feeds, calcines, slags, and dusts to leach solutions, loaded and stripped organics, precipitates, products, and effluent.
- You will stand the laboratory up from an empty room: equipment selection and commissioning, method development and validation, QA/QC systems, staffing, and the data workflows that connect results to plant decisions. Once the plant is running, you own turnaround time and data quality for round-the-clock campaigns, where an assay result can determine whether the plant keeps running.
- Build and lead the laboratory
- Lead daily laboratory operations supporting pilot plant campaigns, process development, and product qualification
- Specify, purchase, install, and commission analytical instrumentation and sample preparation equipment for a new laboratory, and manage the associated capital and operating budgets
- Supervise, mentor, and develop analytical chemists and technicians, including hiring, training and qualification records, scheduling, and performance reviews
- Own the analytical program
- Oversee analytical testing using ICP-OES, ICP-MS, XRF, XRD, titration, ion chromatography, and other relevant techniques
- Own sample preparation for difficult mineral matrices, including crushing, pulverizing, splitting, drying, loss on ignition, acid digestion, and fusion of refractory materials
- Establish, validate, and continuously improve analytical methods for high matrix solutions such as concentrated leach liquors, high salt streams, and organic phases from solvent extraction
- Support pyrometallurgical characterization needs including elemental assay of feeds, calcines, slags, dusts, and residues, along with moisture, LOI, carbon and sulfur, and particle size analysis
- Manage external and umpire laboratory relationships for methods held outside the site, including sample shipping, turnaround, and result reconciliation
- Provide analytical inputs to mass balance and metallurgical accounting, and work with process engineers to resolve balance closure issues
- Quality, data, and systems
- Develop and enforce laboratory SOPs, QA/QC protocols, and data validation procedures, including certified reference materials, duplicates, spikes, blanks, and control charting
- Collaborate with process and plant engineering on sampling-point design and validation, covering location, sampler type, frequency, and sample handling, and confirm that each point delivers a representative sample before it is relied on for process decisions.
- Own detection limits, precision and accuracy targets, and documented uncertainty for every reported method
- Implement and administer a laboratory information management system or equivalent digital data workflow, including sample chain of custody from the plant floor to the reported result
- Set and hold turnaround time commitments by priority tier, so operations receives time-critical results fast enough to act on them
- Maintain and oversee calibration, preventive maintenance, and troubleshooting of analytical instrumentation, and manage service contracts and vendor relationships
- Manage laboratory inventory including consumables, gases, standards, and reagents
- Safety and compliance
- Ensure compliance with safety regulations, the chemical hygiene plan, and environmental requirements
- Own safe handling, storage, and segregation of concentrated acids, bases, flammable solvents, and hazardous samples, including fume hood performance and emergency equipment readiness
- Manage laboratory waste characterization, accumulation, and disposal in line with regulatory requirements
- Lead laboratory incident investigation and corrective action, and participate in site hazard reviews
Требования
- Bachelor or Master degree in Chemistry, Metallurgy, Materials Science, Chemical Engineering, or a related field
- 8 or more years of hands-on analytical laboratory experience, including significant experience with ICP-OES, ICP-MS, and XRF methods
- 3 or more years managing laboratory personnel or leading analytical teams
- Demonstrated experience analyzing both solids and solutions from mineral processing or metallurgical operations, including sample preparation of refractory matrices by acid digestion and fusion
- Strong understanding of inorganic chemistry, trace element analysis, matrix and interference effects, spectral corrections, and method validation
- Experience supporting both high temperature and wet chemical process streams is strongly preferred, including slags, calcines, dusts, leach solutions, and solvent extraction phases
- Demonstrated experience implementing QA/QC systems and maintaining data integrity standards in a production or pilot support environment
- Experience standing up a new laboratory, or significantly expanding one, including instrument selection, installation, and qualification
- Experience implementing or administering a LIMS or comparable digital data workflow
- Experience in minerals processing, metallurgy, chemicals, specialty materials, or a similar industrial environment
- Working knowledge of OSHA laboratory standards, chemical hygiene requirements, hazardous waste handling, and shipping of regulated samples
- Strong organizational skills and the ability to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced startup environment
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to present analytical limitations and uncertainty clearly to engineers and operators