Director / Senior Director of New Product Planning, Physical Science

lilasciences

Cambridge, MA USA; San Francisco, CA USA · Cambridge · CA USA

Posted Jun 10, 2026

Full-time
Corporate Development

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Job description

Your Impact at LILA

Lila Sciences is hiring a Director / Senior Director, New Product Planning of Physical Science to help shape Lila Origins, our company and asset creation arm which partners to translate scientific vision into molecules, materials, and real-world ventures. As a member of a small, highly cross-functional team, this role brings the commercial voice to life. The focus is on assessing where Lila's platform can produce differentiated assets and shaping how those opportunities become ventures, partnerships, or programs.

What You'll Be Building

Source and evaluate new physical science opportunities for Origins, screening for scientific differentiation, commercial viability, and fit with Lila's platform capabilities
Track materials science, chemistry, energy systems, and advanced manufacturing trends, including platform breakthroughs, pipeline movement, and deal activity across deep tech and industry, and translate signal into actionable views for Origins
Match materials platforms and chemical or physical process innovations to application areas using technical rationale, competitive landscape, and unmet need, and recommend where Origins should concentrate effort
Build and own market sizing, end-market demand, and deal economic models that inform go / no-go decisions on candidate ventures and partnerships
Develop specifications and early commercial theses for assets under consideration, in partnership with Science, Product, and Corporate Development
Run primary and secondary research including expert interviews, competitor tracking, and customer and supply chain landscape analysis to stress-test assumptions and sharpen recommendations
Shape deal structures and partnership constructs alongside Corporate Development, translating commercial logic into terms that work for Lila and counterparties
Contribute to Origins' strategic thesis by synthesizing what we learn across opportunities into recommendations on application area focus, platform bets, and partnership models

What You'll Need to Succeed

7 or more years in new product planning, commercial assessment, asset strategy, or business development inside a materials company, specialty chemicals organization, energy technology firm, deep tech startup, or physical science investor, with a track record of shaping go / no-go calls on early-stage assets
Strong scientific literacy in physical sciences including materials, chemistry, physics, or advanced manufacturing; able to engage substantively with scientists and external experts and translate technical nuance into commercial implications
Demonstrated ability to match platform technologies to application areas, with a clear point of view on where technical fit, unmet need, and competitive landscape converge
Hands-on modeling experience across market sizing, demand forecasting, and deal economics; comfortable building models from scratch and defending assumptions
Active fluency in industry trends, platform movement, and deal activity across materials, energy, and deep tech
Strong written and verbal communication; able to distill complex commercial and scientific analyses into crisp recommendations for senior leadership
Genuinely energized by building structure in undefined spaces; comfortable moving forward with limited oversight and a strong instinct for bringing clarity to ambiguous situations

Bonus Points For

Advanced degree in a physical science discipline such as materials science, chemistry, chemical engineering, or physics, or an MBA with a deep focus on deep tech
Well-connected across the materials, deep tech, and investment communities
Hands-on use of AI tools in your daily work with a clear point of view on how AI is reshaping materials discovery and asset creation

Compensation

We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.

U.S. Benefits. Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.

International Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.

Expected Base Salary Range

$168,000—$272,000 USD

About LILA

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.

LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.

Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.

We’re All In

Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.

A Note to Agencies

Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.