Materials Engineer, Corrosion

About Rivian

Rivian is on a mission to keep the world adventurous forever. This goes for the emissions‑free Electric Adventure Vehicles we build, and the curious, courageous souls we seek to attract.

As a company, we constantly challenge what's possible, never simply accepting what has always been done. We reframe old problems, seek new solutions and operate comfortably in areas that are unknown. Our backgrounds are diverse, but our team shares a love of the outdoors and a desire to protect it for future generations.

Reliability is at the core of Electric Adventure Vehicles. This position is in Tustin, CA, at the center of Rivian's Engineering and R&D hub. As a Staff Materials Engineer, Corrosion on the Tustin Materials team, you will play a key role in ensuring that our products perform reliably for our customers. The Staff Materials Engineer, Corrosion will perform a wide range of analysis and testing of materials and material systems, from the early development phases through to series production.

• Collaborate with teams across Rivian programs to assess materials and system design and to improve corrosion fundamentals, specification, and performance.
• Test materials and systems, coatings, adhesives and weldments at the lab scale including coupon and component tests.
• Perform detailed problem‑solving such as root cause corrective action and/or failure analysis for issues with parts encountered in the plant, during external testing, in a Service environment, or in the field.
• Responsible for creation of design guidance and material qualification for corrosion performance.
• Work to develop multi‑scale model correlation to enable more first‑principles design work and earlier issue detection to protect corrosion performance and interaction with other material property requirements.

• 7+ years of experience as corrosion testing, electrochemist, mechanical design, and/or materials engineer
• BS in Electrochemistry, Corrosion, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering or other relevant field.
• Experience running lab, part, and assembly corrosion tests including salt spray corrosion testing, galvanostat/potentiostat electrochemical measurements, coating characterization, and post test evaluation.
• Expertise with industry standards and the ability to author in‑house corrosion guidelines and standards.
• Top‑notch communication skills and the ability to improve corrosion performance through 1:1 consultations with designers and manufacturing, and providing design guidance and technical presentations to the engineering community.
• Experience effectively presenting and communicating highly complex technical information in a manner appropriate to a variety of audiences, from the fellow scientist to the executive level.
• Ability to specify and execute industry standard corrosion tests, as well as design custom design of experiments for analysis of components and assemblies.
• Comfortable as a primary technical point of contact for diagnosing and containing emergent Design, Testing, Production, and Service corrosion concerns.
• Capable of safely operating basic metallographic laboratory equipment and performing failure analysis and testing on material samples and parts.
• Familiarity with primary automotive structures with critical corrosion quality requirements, such as Body, Interior and Chassis assemblies.
• Working knowledge of commonly used automotive materials, their manufacturing methods and their influence on design, material selection and performance validation. Includes aluminum alloys, steels, coatings, multiple grades of plastic, sealants, adhesives, and composites.
• Hands‑on experience with materials characterization techniques such as optical microscopy, SEM, EDS, hardness testing, sample X‑sectioning & etching, and fractography is required.

Salary Range/Hourly Rate for California Based Applicants: $125,000-$156,200 (actual compensation will be determined based on experience, location, and other factors permitted by law).

Benefits

Summary:

Rivian provides robust medical/Rx, dental and vision insurance packages for full‑time employees, their spouse or domestic…