Materials Engineer (New Grad December 2026)

About the Role

Freeform builds AI-native manufacturing systems that unify software, hardware, and physics to produce industrial-scale parts at the speed of human ideation. As a Materials Engineer at Freeform, you will support the company's M&P infrastructure, strategy, and best practices for our advanced metal 3D printing technology. You will work alongside senior engineers to conduct hands-on sample testing, analyze findings, and contribute to strategic process improvements. This is a unique opportunity to build a fundamental understanding of metals characterization and processing while working at the cutting edge of additive manufacturing.

Key Responsibilities

• Support the development of Freeform's M&P best practices and materials testing infrastructure
• Operate equipment to measure material properties such as tensile strength, surface roughness, and microstructure
• Generate and track quality metrics of printed customer parts such as dimensional accuracy, defect distribution, and surface roughness
• Organize, analyze, and interpret data and present key findings
• Work with the process development team to tie key materials findings into improvement of upstream printing processes, including training our advanced machine learning models
• Assist in optimizing processes and procedures for measuring and quantifying material quality
• Support automation efforts for M&P procedures to take human out of the loop

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Bachelor's degree in Materials Science, Materials Engineering, Metallurgy, or Mechanical Engineering from an ABET accredited university or college
• Hands-on lab or coursework experience with metals characterization, processing, or sample preparation techniques such as cutting, grinding, polishing, acid etching, and optical microscopy
• Well versed in materials engineering fundamentals and comfortable taking a first principles approach to solving problems

Nice to Have

• Advanced degree (Master's, PhD) in Materials Science, Materials Engineering, Metallurgy, or Mechanical Engineering
• Experience with metal additive manufacturing highly preferred
• Experience with laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) processes
• Experience operating complex materials equipment (SEM, Instron, etc.)
• Familiarity with processing large datasets and statistical data analysis software such as R, JMP, or Minitab
• Passion for improving the state of metal 3D printing
• Comfortable working in fast-paced, ambiguous environments and iterating quickly
• Strong communicator who collaborates across disciplines and proactively seeks support when needed
• Willing to take ownership of tasks big and small, with a hands-on, problem-solving mindset
• Strong work ethic with a refuse to fail mindset
• Demonstrated indicators of excellence and/or achieving success against adversity (i.e. top academic performance, leadership in engineering clubs, first generation college student, or other examples of resilience and achievement)

Location

• Based in Hawthorne, our vertically integrated facility brings technology development, R&D, and production together under one roof.
• This role requires full-time onsite presence (five days a week).

Compensation

• Estimated salary range: $95,000-$120,000, dependent on academic level (Bachelors, Masters, or PhD) and demonstrated out-of-classroom experience.
• Significant stock option packages.