Thin-Film Process Engineer (Vacuum)

About Us

At Active Surfaces, our mission is bold: to unlock clean energy in places traditional solar can't reach. Our technology, born from nearly a decade of materials science research at MIT, enables ultra-lightweight, flexible solar modules that install on rooftops, walls, and industrial surfaces once considered off-limits. With our platform, the built environment itself becomes a source of clean power.

Since our founding, we've rapidly emerged as one of the most exciting startups in climate tech, merging breakthrough science with advanced manufacturing. Backed by leading global investors and strategic partners — including J-POWER, Sabanc, and Lendlease — and having already deployed a paid pilot with a Fortune 500 partner, we're scaling quickly to support a growing pipeline of deployments and commercial opportunities through 2028.

We're expanding our team to support this next phase of rapid growth. These key hires will join a world-class group with deep expertise in semiconductor and perovskite research, roll-to-roll manufacturing, and commercial leadership across the energy sector.

Let's be direct about what this is. We're a small team taking on a genuinely hard problem—and we hire accordingly. This is a high-intensity, early-stage environment where the pace is fast and the work you do is load-bearing: it directly determines whether we scale. We look for people who hold themselves to an exceptionally high bar, want deep ownership, and are energized rather than daunted by ambiguity. The work is demanding; the upside—in impact, in career growth, and in equity—is meant to match it. Few people get to materially change whether clean energy reaches places solar never could. If that's the room you want to be in, you'll be surrounded by people who feel the same.

How we work:

• Tackle hard problems first — we front-load the hardest work to minimize wasted cycles and accelerate learning.
• Stay curious and creative — we thrive in ambiguity and push the boundaries of innovation.
• Thrive on feedback — we use it to grow quickly, as individuals and as a team.
• Act today, not tomorrow — we move with urgency and a bias toward action.
• Trust the team and be trustworthy — we communicate openly and show up reliably for one another.

If you hold yourself to that bar and want to shape the future of solar alongside us, we want to meet you.

About the Job

As a Thin-Film Process Engineer, you'll own the vacuum deposition tools at the heart of our module fabrication. You'll run and maintain our sputtering and thermal evaporation systems and develop and lock down deposition processes. This is a hands-on role for someone who likes being on the tools—keeping them running, dialing in processes, and directly enabling the devices we deploy in the field.

Reporting to the Founder & Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and the Chief Manufacturing Scientist, you'll work closely with the broader engineering team to take electrode and packaging processes from lab-validated to manufacturing-ready.

This role is eligible for visa sponsorship and relocation. This job will be located full-time on site in Woburn, MA at our Headquarters and Manufacturing Development site.

Responsibilities

• Operate, maintain, and troubleshoot sputtering and thermal evaporation systems, ensuring tool uptime and reliable, repeatable deposition.
• Develop, optimize, and document deposition processes for electrode and contact layers (metallic and dielectric thin films).
• Own device packaging and encapsulation process development—barrier, lamination, and edge-seal approaches that protect modules in real-world conditions.
• Maintain vacuum systems and supporting hardware: pumps, chambers, gauges, targets, sources, and fixturing.
• Characterize deposited films and packaged devices, analyze results, and drive process improvements.
• Partner with the engineering team to transfer electrode and packaging processes toward manufacturing scale.
• Keep the lab safe, organized, and running—maintaining process logs, equipment records, and safety practices.

Requirements

• B.S., M.S., or PhD in Materials Science, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field.
• 3+ years of hands-on experience operating and maintaining vacuum deposition equipment (sputtering and/or thermal evaporation).Practical knowledge of vacuum systems—pumps, chambers, base pressure, leak checking, and routine maintenance.
• Experience developing and optimizing thin-film deposition processes, with strong hands-on troubleshooting instincts.
• Comfortable planning and running experiments, characterizing films, and using data to drive process decisions.
• A maker's mindset: practical, resourceful, and energized by getting hardware to work reliably.
• Eager to contribute and learn in a collaborative, dynamic, fast-paced startup environment.
• Six-Sigma certification and a strong, almost perfectionist attitude toward maintaining controls and reducing process variation.

Bonus Points

• Experience with device packaging, encapsulation, or barrier/moisture-protection processes.
• Experience depositing electrode and contact stacks for solar cells, OLEDs, displays, or similar thin-film devices.
• Familiarity with perovskite and/or organic photovoltaic (OPV) materials.
• Experience with R2R or other web-based / large-area coating processes.
• Cleanroom and glovebox experience.
• Film characterization experience (profilometry, SEM, XRD, four-point probe, ellipsometry, UV-Vis, etc.).
• Coding/scripting for tool control or data analysis (Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB).
• Hardware/fixture prototyping (mechanical design, 3D printing, basic machining).

Performance Bonus

All full-time employees are eligible for an annual performance bonus of up to 50% of base salary, assessed every six months. The structure is intentionally non-linear — top performers earn disproportionately more, and we want it that way. This isn't stack-ranked: if everyone is exceptional, everyone earns at the top. Your individual contribution is the primary driver, tied to both department and company outcomes. If you're a top performer, this is where we want that to pay off. Consistent high performance also influences base salary increases, with similar non-linear structures — so the compounding effect over time is significant.

Base salary offers are given based on the experience level of the candidate but applicants should expect base salary levels in-line with their experience level for the Boston area. We are willing to hire multiple exceptional candidates with this posting.

Perks

• Top-tier health and dental insurance (90% covered)
• 15 days vacation, 5 days personal leave (20 once seniority is reached)
• Commute reimbursement (75%)
• Wellness program ($50/month)
• Cell Phone Reimbursement ($50/month)
• 401K Matching (up to 5%)