Materials & Polymers Domain Specialist

Patsnap is building evidence-backed materials datasets extracted from patents and scientific literature, starting with an engineering-polymer curation program. You will own the delivery of this program end to end: managing any vendor relationships, safeguarding scientific quality, and connecting the curated output to Patsnap's ontology, extraction, and search teams. Beyond this program, you will support a growing portfolio of materials data extraction, indexing, and search projects.

This is a hands-on scientific role, not a pure project-management role. The hardest problems are chemical, not infrastructural: deciding whether a Markush structure's variable definitions were captured faithfully, whether a repeat unit was explicitly disclosed or inferred by a curator, whether a copolymer's architecture was stated or assumed, whether a property was bound to the right sample among a table of examples. You will be the final scientific arbiter on these calls, and you must be able to make them yourself.

What you will do

Core requirements

These three are non-negotiable; everything else is trainable.

• Polymer science depth. Masters in polymer science, chemistry, materials science, or chemical engineering — or a Bachelors with equivalent industry experience — with command of polymer structure and representation, demonstrated by the ability to:

  • read and interpret repeat structural units (SRUs): bracket notation, attachment points, end groups, and the difference between a monomer, a repeat unit, and the polymer itself;
  • interpret generic and Markush polymer structures in patents — variable substituents (R-groups), their textual definitions and scope, and what a generic claim does and does not disclose;
  • distinguish polymer architectures (linear, branched, block, graft, random, network) and recognize when an architecture is stated versus merely permitted;
  • parse composition and formulation descriptions: homopolymer vs. copolymer vs. blend, constituent roles (base polymer, crosslinker, filler, catalyst, additive), quantity bases (wt%, phr, mol%), and nested or intermediate compositions;
  • bind properties correctly — knowing that a monomer's property is not its polymer's, a component's property is not the blend's, and a typical grade value is not a measured example result.

  Hands-on formulation, synthesis, or characterization experience counts as much as academic credentials — but this scientific judgment is the heart of the role and will be tested at interview against real patent examples.

  • Quality by process. Demonstrated experience managing quality through structured process — lab quality systems (GLP/ISO), audit readiness, structured review workflows, or data QC by sampling and metrics — rather than ad-hoc checking.

  • Delivery management. Experience managing projects, teams, or external partners against defined deliverables, schedules, and acceptance criteria.

You likely come from one of these backgrounds

We are deliberately recruiting from several adjacent pools. Strength in one of these, plus the core requirements above, is a complete application — you do not need to tick every box.

We will train you on

Nice-to-have