Materials Innovation Manager

We're Hiring: Materials Innovation 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, product innovation, sustainability, and industrial performance across diverse markets.

Our teams collaborate across materials science, research and development, engineering, manufacturing, product development, procurement, quality, sustainability, and commercial functions to develop and commercialize advanced materials and scalable solutions.

The Role

We are seeking an experienced Materials Innovation Manager to lead materials research, innovation programs, technology development, material selection, prototyping, testing, scale-up, and commercialization initiatives.

The ideal candidate will combine strong materials-science expertise with innovation management and commercial awareness, identifying emerging materials and technologies that can improve product performance, manufacturing efficiency, sustainability, durability, and competitive advantage.

Key Responsibilities

• Develop and implement materials innovation strategies aligned with business and technology objectives.
• Identify emerging materials, technologies, manufacturing processes, and scientific developments relevant to the organization.
• Lead research and development programs covering metals, polymers, composites, ceramics, coatings, biomaterials, advanced materials, or other relevant material classes.
• Identify opportunities for new materials, improved formulations, alternative materials, and next-generation product solutions.
• Evaluate material technologies based on performance, cost, availability, manufacturability, sustainability, and commercial potential.
• Lead material innovation projects from concept generation through laboratory development, prototyping, validation, scale-up, and commercialization.
• Define technical requirements, material specifications, performance targets, and development criteria.
• Develop research plans, experimental programs, technical milestones, budgets, and project timelines.
• Coordinate laboratory testing, material characterization, prototyping, pilot production, and field validation.
• Evaluate mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, optical, physical, and environmental properties as applicable.
• Investigate material behavior, degradation mechanisms, compatibility, durability, failure modes, and lifecycle performance.
• Lead formulation development, material modification, surface treatment, processing optimization, or composite development where applicable.
• Work with engineering teams to integrate innovative materials into products, components, equipment, and manufacturing processes.
• Support design-for-materials, design-for-manufacturing, and material substitution initiatives.
• Evaluate alternative materials to improve cost, performance, supply resilience, recyclability, or environmental impact.
• Assess material manufacturability, scalability, processing requirements, equipment compatibility, and production constraints.
• Coordinate pilot-scale production and industrial scale-up of promising materials and technologies.
• Establish validation plans and acceptance criteria for new materials.
• Coordinate qualification, certification, testing, and approval activities.
• Work closely with quality teams to establish material specifications, testing methods, control plans, and acceptance standards.
• Investigate material-related quality issues, product failures, nonconformances, and customer complaints.
• Lead material failure investigations and develop corrective and preventive actions.
• Develop and maintain material databases, technical specifications, test results, research documentation, and knowledge repositories.
• Establish material characterization and testing protocols in collaboration with laboratories and technical partners.
• Monitor technology readiness levels and establish clear criteria for progressing innovation projects.
• Conduct technical and commercial assessments of emerging material technologies.
• Evaluate intellectual property opportunities, patents, proprietary technologies, and freedom-to-operate considerations.
• Work with legal and intellectual-property teams to protect valuable innovations and technical developments.
• Build relationships with universities, research institutions, technology companies, laboratories, suppliers, and specialist consultants.
• Manage external research programs, technical collaborations, testing laboratories, and innovation partners.
• Evaluate material suppliers and emerging technology providers based on technical capability, quality, scalability, and commercial viability.
• Support procurement and supply-chain teams in qualifying new material sources.
• Develop business cases for materials innovation projects, including cost, investment, benefits, risks, and expected returns.
• Monitor innovation budgets, project expenditure, resource requirements, and development costs.
• Identify opportunities to reduce material costs, production waste, energy consumption, and environmental impact.
• Support sustainability initiatives through material substitution, lightweighting, recycled content, bio-based materials, circularity, and improved recyclability.
• Assess lifecycle performance and environmental impacts of innovative material solutions.
• Monitor regulatory, industry, technical, and market developments affecting material selection and innovation.
• Ensure new materials comply with applicable safety, regulatory, environmental, quality, and industry standards.
• Support technology transfer from research and development into engineering and manufacturing operations.
• Develop technical documentation, reports, presentations, specifications, and commercialization recommendations.
• Train engineering, production, quality, procurement, and technical teams on new materials and technologies.
• Establish innovation governance, stage-gate processes, technical review procedures, and project reporting standards.
• Promote collaboration, experimentation, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement across technical teams.
• Provide senior management with regular reports on innovation portfolios, technical progress, risks, investment requirements, and commercialization opportunities.

Key Performance Indicators

• Materials innovation projects completed
• New material concepts generated
• Innovation project pipeline
• Technology readiness progression
• Prototype development cycle time
• Laboratory validation success rate
• Pilot-scale validation success rate
• New material commercialization rate
• Time from concept to commercialization
• Material performance improvement
• Product performance improvement
• Material cost reduction
• Manufacturing cost reduction
• Material utilization improvement
• Waste reduction
• Energy reduction
• Recycled or renewable material content
• Material carbon-footprint reduction
• Product lifecycle improvement
• Material substitution success rate
• Supplier qualification completion
• Material qualification cycle time
• Testing and validation completion
• Technical failure rate
• Material-related defect rate
• Customer acceptance rate
• Innovation project ROI
• Commercial revenue from new materials
• Cost savings from material innovation
• Intellectual-property opportunities
• Research partnership performance
• External technology adoption
• Innovation budget adherence
• Project milestone achievement
• Scale-up success rate
• Manufacturing integration success
• Regulatory and certification compliance
• Technical documentation completion
• Knowledge-transfer completion
• Stakeholder satisfaction
• Continuous-improvement contribution

Ideal Candidate

The successful candidate should have strong experience in materials science, materials engineering, research and development, product innovation, advanced materials, chemical engineering, metallurgy, polymers, composites, ceramics, or related technical disciplines.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• Proven experience managing materials research, development, innovation, or technology programs.
• Strong understanding of materials science, material properties, processing, characterization, and failure mechanisms.
• Experience developing or evaluating new materials, formulations, composites, coatings, or material technologies.
• Strong knowledge of material testing and characterization techniques.
• Experience with laboratory development, prototyping, pilot-scale testing, and industrial scale-up.
• Understanding of manufacturing processes and material-processing requirements.
• Ability to translate technical research into commercially viable products and applications.
• Strong project-management and innovation-management capabilities.
• Experience working with suppliers, laboratories, universities, research institutions, and technology partners.
• Strong understanding of material specifications, qualification, quality assurance, and certification.
• Experience with sustainability, circular materials, recycling, lightweighting, or low-carbon material solutions is highly desirable.
• Strong analytical, experimental, and problem-solving skills.
• Ability to assess technical risks, commercial opportunities, costs, and scalability.
• Familiarity with intellectual property, patents, technology licensing, and research partnerships.
• Strong understanding of applicable technical, safety, environmental, and regulatory standards.
• Excellent communication, technical writing, presentation, and stakeholder-management skills.
• Strong leadership and cross-functional collaboration capabilities.
• Ability to manage multiple innovation programs, priorities, budgets, and deadlines.
• Experience working with international and distributed teams.
• A strong curiosity, innovation mindset, and passion for emerging materials technologies.