Advanced Materials Manager

We're Hiring: Advanced Materials Manager

Location: United Arab Emirates (Remote)

Employment Type: Full-Time

Experience Level: Mid-Level to Senior

Work Arrangement: Fully Remote

About Us

We are a globally focused organization committed to advancing materials technology, engineering performance, sustainability, and industrial innovation across diverse markets.

Our teams collaborate across materials science, engineering, research and development, manufacturing, product development, quality, procurement, sustainability, and commercial functions to develop and implement advanced materials that deliver measurable performance and business value.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Advanced Materials Manager to lead the evaluation, development, qualification, application, and commercialization of advanced materials and material technologies.

The ideal candidate will combine strong technical knowledge with strategic leadership, managing programs involving high-performance metals, polymers, composites, ceramics, coatings, functional materials, lightweight materials, smart materials, and other emerging technologies.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement advanced materials strategies aligned with business, technology, product, and sustainability objectives.
• Lead materials technology programs from concept development through qualification, scale-up, manufacturing integration, and commercialization.
• Identify emerging materials, processing technologies, and scientific developments with potential business applications.
• Evaluate advanced metals, alloys, polymers, composites, ceramics, coatings, nanomaterials, biomaterials, and functional materials.
• Define material performance requirements based on product, engineering, manufacturing, environmental, and customer needs.
• Develop material selection frameworks considering performance, cost, availability, manufacturability, durability, sustainability, and lifecycle requirements.
• Lead material research, formulation development, modification, processing, and application programs.
• Coordinate laboratory research, material characterization, prototyping, pilot production, and field testing.
• Evaluate mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical, optical, physical, and environmental material properties.
• Investigate material behavior under fatigue, corrosion, wear, temperature, pressure, chemical exposure, radiation, and other operating conditions as applicable.
• Lead material failure investigations, root-cause analysis, and corrective-action programs.
• Support the development of high-strength, lightweight, high-temperature, corrosion-resistant, wear-resistant, and other performance-driven material solutions.
• Evaluate advanced composite systems, reinforcement technologies, fiber architectures, resins, additives, and manufacturing processes where applicable.
• Assess advanced manufacturing technologies including additive manufacturing, powder processing, advanced forming, coating, surface treatment, and automated material processing.
• Support design teams with material selection, material modeling, design optimization, and material-performance assessments.
• Develop and maintain material specifications, standards, qualification requirements, testing procedures, and acceptance criteria.
• Establish material qualification and validation programs for new and alternative materials.
• Coordinate testing and certification with internal and external laboratories.
• Ensure material technologies meet applicable technical, safety, regulatory, environmental, and industry standards.
• Lead material substitution and alternative-material programs to improve performance, reduce cost, and strengthen supply resilience.
• Evaluate material availability, supply-chain risks, supplier capabilities, and scalability.
• Work with procurement and suppliers to identify innovative materials, technologies, and manufacturing solutions.
• Qualify new material suppliers, manufacturing processes, and technical sources.
• Develop supplier technical requirements, quality expectations, testing standards, and qualification plans.
• Coordinate technology transfer from research and development into production environments.
• Support pilot-scale manufacturing, industrial trials, process validation, and production ramp-up.
• Monitor material behavior and performance during manufacturing and field operation.
• Establish material quality-control plans and monitor material-related manufacturing performance.
• Work with quality teams to investigate material nonconformances, defects, and customer issues.
• Support product development teams during design reviews, engineering changes, prototypes, and new-product introduction.
• Evaluate the impact of new materials on tooling, equipment, processing conditions, joining methods, finishing, and assembly.
• Assess lifecycle performance, maintainability, recyclability, and end-of-life considerations.
• Promote sustainable materials including recycled, renewable, bio-based, low-carbon, and circular material solutions.
• Evaluate lightweighting opportunities to reduce material consumption, energy use, transportation impacts, and product weight.
• Develop business cases for advanced materials programs, including investment, cost, benefits, risks, and expected returns.
• Manage R&D budgets, project costs, technical resources, testing expenses, and external research programs.
• Monitor technology readiness levels and establish stage-gate criteria for advancing development programs.
• Identify intellectual-property opportunities and work with legal teams on patents, licensing, confidentiality, and technology protection.
• Build relationships with universities, research institutes, laboratories, technology companies, specialist suppliers, and technical consultants.
• Monitor scientific publications, patents, conferences, market trends, and competitor developments.
• Establish advanced-materials technology roadmaps and long-term development priorities.
• Evaluate digital tools including materials informatics, computational materials engineering, simulation, machine learning, and AI-assisted material discovery.
• Develop technical reports, research summaries, material databases, specifications, and management presentations.
• Train engineering, manufacturing, quality, procurement, and technical teams on advanced materials and emerging technologies.
• Establish governance for materials development, qualification, documentation, intellectual property, and technology transfer.
• Promote a culture of experimentation, technical excellence, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Provide management with regular reports on technology portfolios, development progress, technical risks, investment requirements, and commercialization opportunities.

Key Performance Indicators

• Advanced materials projects completed
• New material technologies evaluated
• Materials technology pipeline
• Technology readiness progression
• Research-to-commercialization cycle time
• Prototype development cycle time
• Material qualification success rate
• Pilot-scale validation success rate
• Commercialization success rate
• Material performance improvement
• Product performance improvement
• Material strength-to-weight improvement
• Thermal performance improvement
• Corrosion and wear resistance improvement
• Material durability improvement
• Manufacturing yield improvement
• Material cost reduction
• Product lifecycle cost reduction
• Material consumption reduction
• Manufacturing energy reduction
• Waste reduction
• Recycled or renewable material content
• Material carbon-footprint reduction
• Material substitution success rate
• Supplier qualification completion
• Material qualification cycle time
• Testing and validation completion
• Material-related defect rate
• Field failure rate
• Root-cause closure rate
• Customer acceptance rate
• Innovation project ROI
• Revenue from advanced-material applications
• Cost savings from material innovation
• Intellectual-property opportunities
• Research partnership performance
• Technology transfer success
• Scale-up success rate
• Manufacturing integration performance
• Regulatory and certification compliance
• Project milestone achievement
• R&D budget adherence
• Technical documentation completion
• Continuous-improvement contribution

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in advanced materials, materials science, materials engineering, metallurgy, polymers, composites, ceramics, coatings, chemical engineering, nanomaterials, or related research and technology disciplines.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Proven experience leading advanced materials research, development, qualification, or industrial application programs.
• Strong understanding of materials science, structure-property relationships, processing, characterization, and degradation mechanisms.
• Experience working with high-performance metals, polymers, composites, ceramics, coatings, or other advanced material systems.
• Strong knowledge of material testing and characterization methods.
• Experience with laboratory research, prototyping, pilot-scale development, and industrial scale-up.
• Understanding of advanced manufacturing and material-processing technologies.
• Experience selecting and qualifying materials for demanding engineering or industrial applications.
• Strong understanding of material specifications, standards, certification, and quality requirements.
• Experience conducting material failure analysis and developing corrective actions.
• Ability to evaluate technical performance, manufacturing feasibility, cost, risk, and commercial potential.
• Experience managing suppliers, laboratories, universities, research institutions, and technology partners.
• Strong understanding of sustainable materials, circularity, recycling, lightweighting, and lifecycle considerations.
• Familiarity with materials modeling, simulation, materials informatics, or AI-assisted materials development is highly desirable.
• Understanding of intellectual property, patents, technology licensing, and research collaboration.
• Strong project-management, budget-management, and portfolio-management skills.