R&D Team Manager

Date: 5 Jun 2024

Location: Torino, IT

Company: newcleo

Role Description
We are looking for a R&D Team Manager who will be responsible for leading, managing, and developing the staff (scientists, engineers and specialists) under his assigned area of competence. As such, the R&D Team Manager plays an important role by fostering a culture of innovation, while supporting the Head of Unit plan and manage local R&D activities. In addition, the R&D Team Manager is responsible for specific infrastructure, depending on the location. This part of the role covers controlling and financials, maintenance of top-notch hardware & software infrastructure, other administrative tasks. Last, but not least, the R&D Team Manager plays a pivotal role concerning cooperation and coordination with internal support functions, external stakeholders, and partners, including suppliers, research institutions, academy, safety authorities and standardization bodies.
Concerning the technical areas covered, depending on the specific location, the emphasis may vary from processing to advanced characterization or testing of steel alloys, surface treatments and or development of innovative bulk materials.
Main Activities

• Technical and scientific proficiency and leadership: (i) serves as a technical resource for the unit and provides technical support for internal and external contacts; (ii) supports the development of technical guidelines; (iii) contributes actively to technical and scientific activities, executing R&D activities in own domain of expertise.
• Technology direction: (i) contributes shaping the strategy of the Materials Unit in collaboration with the Head of Unit, and executes the strategy for own area of responsibility; (ii) plays an important role translating R&D programs into working schedules for the staff under area of responsibility.
• Innovation and creativity: (i) drives and fosters a culture of innovation within own R&D Team; (ii) develops culture and capability in own organization to ensure R&D staff feel comfortable challenging the status quo in technical issues, projects, tools and/or processes.
• Projects, processes, tools and infrastructure: (i) plans and ensures capacity, people and resources for R&D programs and efficiently manages priority conflicts; (ii) oversees efficient, timely and quality program execution and ensures financial and content supervision over the projects; (iii) recommends, develops, and improves processes, procedures, and tools to enhance the R&D Team’s operations; (iv) applies and monitors appropriate development and quality standards; (v) defines and enforces safety processes in compliance with applicable regulations; (vi) ensures physical security, protection, and maintenance of equipment; (vii) ensures that the lab is equipped with top-notch equipment as technology develops.
• R&D context: (i) stays on top of technology, innovation ideas and market offerings to provide input to to the materials unit strategy; (ii) cooperates with adjacent departments and management team to ensure appropriate representation of needs of own R&D Team.
• Knowledge transfer: (i) supports and oversees transfer of knowledge and technology from own R&D Team to the rest of the organization, and to the external resources and communities as needed; (ii) ensures information flow among all relevant parts of the organization; (iii) sets up and maintains channels for sharing knowledge and state-of-the-art developments from different sources (suppliers, universities, technology institutes, project consortia, etc.); (iv) ensures transfer of technology development to engineering teams in charge for industrialization of processes.
• Partnerships, network and visibility: (i) sets-up and maintains trust-based relationships and collaborations with internal and external contacts (standardization bodies, universities, technology institutes, etc.); (ii) oversees appropriate participation of newcleo in relevant national and/or international technical organizations; (iii) promotes visibility and branding of the R&D Team and its results externally and internally as needed.
• Intellectual property and risk management; (i) ensures action is taken to manage risks and that appropriate consideration is given to IP issues when collaborating with 3rd parties; (ii) supports appropriate protection of newly created intellectual property and assists in defense and enforcement of activities related to technology; (iii) supports monitoring and escalation of IP issues to senior management.
• Finance and budget: (i) prepares annual budgets for the innovation lab in cooperation with the Head of Unit - Materials and support functions; (ii) ensures efficient use of allocated funds; (iii) responsible for proposals for obtaining 3rd party funding aligned with newcleo’s strategy.
• People leadership and development: (i) Guides and motivates assigned resources, applying newcleo HR policies both directly (for direct reports) and indirectly (for indirect reports or external resources); (ii) assigns tasks, coordinates and ensures cooperation between teams; (iii) ensures appropriate staffing and competency development of own R&D Team for the short-, mid- and long-term; (iv) ensures talent management of the individuals in own R&D Team, supporting employees in their development and career opportunities, both within and outside of own R&D Team; (v) collaborates with the Head of Unit - Materials to develop short-, mid- and long-term tactics and strategies to keep competencies and capabilities up to date, and to attract world-class talent; (vi) collaborates with the Head of Unit - Materials and HR to manage performance and to secure succession plans for key roles while ensuring a healthy renewal of competencies keeping attrition under control
• The effort split between management, leadership and administrative tasks is tailored depending on the specific location, infrastructure and size of the R&D Team.

Desired Qualifications

• A PhD in a field relevant to newcleo’s technology is a must.A master’s degree in Nuclear, Mechanical, Materials, Physics or Chemical Engineering, or equivalent is a must.
• Fluent Italian and English. French is a plus.
• Minimum 10 years of engineering experience after graduation in a field such as nuclear energy, chemistry metallurgy, oil & gas, manufacturing, automotive, aerospace, or similar.
• For large R&D Teams and infrastructure: meaningful and rich experience in a managerial role within the industry, including experience with project management. Experience managing research facilities is a must.
• For smaller R&D Teams: a first experience in a leadership role within the industry, including experience with project management.
• Strong interpersonal and leadership skills, with demonstrated experience managing complex projects and/or diverse R&D teams.
• Experience building top-notch infrastructure from scratch is desired.
• Proven experience performing structural characterizations and thermo-mechanical tests according to specific standards (e.g., ISO, ASTM…) is desired.
• Knowledge of standards relevant to nuclear materials is a strong plus (i.e., ASME, RCC-MRx and/or EURO codes, nuclear pressurized equipment regulation).
• Knowledge and experience using at least some of the following equipment is mandatory: (including but not limited to) TEM/STEM, FIB/SEM/EDX, XRD, AFM, nanoindentation, mechanical testing equipment (tensile tests, creep tests, fatigue tests, toughness tests…), thin film deposition methods such as PVD/CVD/ALD, ion accelerators or equivalent.
• Experience in the nuclear industry is a strong plus. As an alternative, experience in a strongly regulated environment and good understanding of safety aspects would constitute an advantage.
• Technical track record of excellence in one or more of the following areas is a very strong plus and a strong desire: (i) metallurgy and metallurgical design codes, simulation, and experimental methods; (ii) materials for nuclear reactors; (iii) effects of radiation on materials; (iv) nuclear chemistry and chemistry of water/steam, high temperature oxidation, stress corrosion cracking mechanisms, tribo-corrosion or equivalent; (v) knowledge of heavy liquid metal and/or molten salt chemistry and associated materials issues.
• Any experience in accident tolerant fuel programs for water reactors is a strong plus.