Panasonic Energy of North America (PENA) is seeking ambitious engineers to lead the world’s largest lithium-ion battery initiative. With superior battery designs and the fastest manufacturing lines in the world, Panasonic is producing millions of batteries per day at the Gigafactory to support Tesla’s electric vehicle and energy storage businesses. Panasonic invites you to join us in this ongoing full-scale effort to electrify our society. At PENA, engineers quickly become experts in the fundamentals of lithium-ion cell technology and work to integrate that understanding with high speed, automated manufacturing methods to produce the highest performance and highest quality lithium-ion batteries.
Essential Duties:
- Work with Engineering teams to fabricate, install, and validate new test equipment as well as repair and debug issues with existing equipment.
- Develop novel tests for studying various cell properties under different conditions.
- Write and maintain standard operating procedures (SOP) for test equipment.
- Train technicians on equipment and SOPs and incorporate user feedback.
- Help design and run experiments to better understand the implications of different battery cell designs parameters towards abuse testing.
- Working closely with multi-national Engineering teams to increase understanding of failure modes, performance, and life expectancy of cell products.
- Apply troubleshooting skills and ability to quickly solve unknown problems.
- Other duties may be assigned.
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) Requirements:
- To ensure the health and safety in the workplace and for the protection of our employees, wearing PPE is a requirement for some roles at PENA and may include equipment such as a full Tyvek suit, safety shoes, gloves, safety glasses, face mask, bump cap, and a full hazmat suit that includes a respirator.
The foregoing description is not intended and should not be construed to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, skills and efforts or work conditions associated with the job. It is intended to be an accurate reflection of the general nature and level of the job.
Qualifications: Requirements - Required and/or Preferred
Education:
- Basic: Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or similar discipline.
- Preferred: Master’s Degree in Chemical Engineering, Materials Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or similar discipline.
Essential Qualifications:
- 2+ years of working with electrochemical testing equipment and procedures.
- Experience with test design and setup, data acquisition and analysis.
- A practical understanding of experiment design and statistical analysis.
- Must possess strong engineering fundamental in solid mechanical, thermal, materials and electrical engineering.
- Should be flexible with the working environment and be able to perform job duties between manufacturing floor, laboratory, and office/desk.
- Must be able to perform cell, machine, and process troubleshooting and apply root cause analysis.
- Strong team working skills with other employees at all levels of an organization.
- Evidence of exceptional ability. Panasonic follows a culture of full-cycle engineering where members will have full responsibility and accountability for their projects from start to finish.
- Self-starter who works well independently and an outstanding ability to follow up with minimal direction and will focus on team success.
- Able to manage multiple concurrent tasks in a fast-paced environment, effectively prioritize work, and deliver quality results.
- A strong work ethic with a “get the job done” approach who consistently delivers excellent customer service, both internally and externally.
Preferred Qualifications:
- 5+ years of experience in electrochemical testing, preference will be given to Lithium-ion chemistry experience.
- Familiarity with cell cycling laboratory setup and operation.
- Experience leading root-cause investigations, resolutions, and product improvements.
- Ability to analyze electrochemical datasets and effectively communicate the extracted cell performance parameters.
- Experience with hands on cell fabrication and disassembly.
- Experience interfacing to databases, information management and reporting applications used for MES/SCADA systems is preferred.
- Strong data analysis skills with tools such as JMP, Minitab, Python, MATLAB, are highly desired.
Preferred License(s):
- None
Preferred Certification(s):
- None
Physical Demands:
Physical Activities: (Percentage of time (equaling 100%) during the normal workday the employee is required to)
- Sit: 20%
- Walk: 50%
- Stand: 20%
- Lift: 10%
Required Lifting and Carrying: (Required frequency is: Not required (0%), Occasional (1-33%), Frequent (34-66%, Continuous (67-100%)
- Up to 10 lbs.: Frequent
- Up to 20 lbs.: Frequent
- Up to 35 lbs.: Frequent
- Team-lift only (over 35 lbs.): Frequent
About Us:
Panasonic Energy of North America (PENA) is collaborating with Tesla at a massive battery factory near Reno, Nevada which is known for its quality of life and expansive outdoor adventures. Panasonic's role at the Gigafactory is to manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells to Tesla for their electric vehicles and energy storage systems.
Over the past few years, the Gigafactory has grown to the largest lithium-ion battery factory in the world. Together with our partner Tesla, we continue to revolutionize the lithium-ion battery space and accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy and transportation.
Our mission at PENA is to make the vision of affordable Electric Vehicles a reality by producing the world’s safest, high quality, and lowest cost batteries. Through this effort we will create a clean energy society and our products will change society’s use of and perceptions of electric power.
In addition to an environment that is as innovative as our products, we offer competitive salaries and benefits.
Supplemental Information:
Pre-employment drug testing is required. Due to the high volume of responses, we will only be able to respond to candidates of interest. All candidates must have valid authorization to work in the U.S. without restriction.
Panasonic is an Equal Opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by law. All qualified individuals are required to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation.
Thank you for your interest in Panasonic Energy of North America.
