Principal Scientist – Carbon Capture & Cement Chemistry
18 hours ago
Nottingham
Location: Nottingham, UK Compensation: high salary + meaningful equity + performance bonus Start Date: Immediate Type: Full-time, permanent Visa Sponsorship: For exceptional candidates only About Concrete4Change Concrete and cement are among the largest industrial sources of CO₂ on Earth. We are building technology to change that. Concrete4Change captures CO₂ and locks it permanently into high-performance construction materials. The goal is simple: make decarbonisation of concrete commercially unavoidable. This is deep tech. Real chemistry. Real scale-up. Real industrial constraints. We are past the stage of academic curiosity. The job now is execution. That means building technology that works in the lab, at pilot scale, and in industry. It means solving hard problems in reaction chemistry, mineral formation, cementitious systems, product performance, and scale-up. It means moving fast and being right. This is a role for someone who wants to build something that matters. The Role We are looking for a world-class scientist to lead one of the most important technical areas in the company. Your job is to understand, control, and improve how captured CO₂ becomes stable mineral phases and how those phases behave inside cementitious systems. You will drive the science behind reaction pathways, kinetics, phase formation, hydration, carbonation, microstructure, durability, and real-world performance. You will turn chemistry into product decisions. You will turn data into scale-up decisions. You will turn scientific understanding into industrial advantage. This is not a role for someone who wants low pressure, unclear ownership, or years of discussion before action. You will work on problems that matter to the core of the company. You will be expected to think clearly, move quickly, challenge assumptions, and make good decisions with imperfect data. You will work closely with engineering, plant, and commercial teams. You will help build experimental capability, improve technical standards, and mentor other scientists and engineers. What We’re Looking For • PhD in Cement Chemistry, Construction Materials, Materials Science, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, or a related field, • 10+ years of industrial experience in carbon capture, CO₂ mineralisation, carbon utilisation, cement chemistry, concrete chemistry, or related materials chemistry, • 5+ years in start-ups or high-growth environments, • Deep understanding of reaction chemistry, including mechanisms, kinetics, phase formation, and material transformation, • Strong expertise in one or both of these domains:, • carbon capture / CO₂ mineralisation, • cement chemistry / concrete chemistry, • Strong grasp of analytical methods and hands-on experience interpreting complex materials data, • Comfortable working with methods such as XRD, TGA/DSC, FTIR, Raman, SEM/EDS, particle analysis, wet chemistry, and performance testing, • Able to connect chemistry to process conditions, product requirements, and industrial scale-up, • Proven ability to lead important technical programmes and make high-quality decisions You’ll Probably Be a Great Fit If • You care about first-principles thinking, • You like hard problems more than polished presentations, • You can go deep technically and still stay focused on what changes outcomes, • You are excited by speed, ambiguity, and accountability, • You want your work to end up in pilot plants, products, factories, and real deployment THIS JOB IS NOT FOR YOU IF • You want a slow, highly structured corporate environment, • You prefer observation over ownership, • You need constant consensus before making progress, • You like research but not execution, • You are more comfortable writing reports than delivering results, • You come from an academic way of working and are not ready for fast industrial execution, • You are looking for a relaxed working environment rather than a high-performance one, • You want to avoid start-up pressure, ambiguity, and pace, • You are not comfortable being judged on results What You Get • High-impact role in a company solving a globally important industrial problem, • Meaningful equity, • Strong salary, • Performance bonus, • Private health insurance and healthcare cash plan, • Pension
