Cell & Algorithms Engineer

Location: Bengaluru, Karnataka, India

Department: Product & Engineering

Workplace: on_site

Employment Type: full

Description

You’ll be working with the Product and Engineering team.

This team runs on coffee with an infectious passion for building products that have never been built before. Our Flexible Energy Stack consists of the e^pack (battery pack) and e^pump (charging station), which unlock 15-minute rapid charging.

Our philosophy: Break. Believe. Build

Break stuff. Break assumptions. Break the thumb rule.

Believe in the team. Believe in the process. Believe through failures.

Build fast. Build passionately. Build to simplify.

What you will do:

E-Pack is a combination of multiple cells connected in series and parallel. 15-minute rapid charging of Battery means 15-minute rapid charging of each cell inside the pack.

Charging and discharging a cell involves both physics and chemistry aspects. We explore both to holistically understand the cell's performance.

Some of the critical Problem Statements related to this role will be: 

1. What are the absolute limits of a cell (in terms of I,V,T) within which we can comfortably charge it in 15 minutes and for 3000+ cycles ?
2. How do we expedite cell qualification to meet our 15-minute full charging + life of >=3000 cycles target?
3. Why/ how are the cells degrading and how do we modify our algorithms to enhance cell life?
4. How do we accurately model any Li-ion cell to predict its performance in a battery pack (electrical, thermal and degradation)

Responsibilities:

1. Design automated experiments using cell cyclers and cooling equipment to define boundary conditions for charging algos for a variety of temperatures, SOCs
2. Lead teardown activities on cells to understand cell failure/degradation modes
3. Analyze cell cycling data (capacity, temperature, voltages, resistances) for anomalies
4. Design Experiments to find root causes for anomalies in cycling performance
5. Develop optimized charging algorithms for cells based on Current, Voltage, temperature, SOC that meets our 15 minute full charge + 3000+ cycle life targets
6. Analyze Field data of battery packs to establish correlation with lab data
7. Lead destructive tests of new and aged cells to qualify cells based on safety
8. Develop electrochemical models and use them to predict cell degradation phenomenon during cell cycling and validate this with tear down analysis of cells.

The ideal candidate requires:

1. Hands-on experience in designing experiments for cell testing and using cell cyclers
2. Hands-on experience in fabricating cells/ performing tear down analysis of cells
3. Hands-on experience in handling/ processing large amounts of data using data analysis software (MATLAB/Python/Octave)
4. A solid foundation in chemistry, materials science, or a related field
5. M.S/M.Tech in Chemical engineering or Electrical engineering with strong fundamental knowledge of Li ion cells 

What matters:

1. Quality of work
2. structured problem-solving
3. Dissatisfaction with mediocre work
4. Ability to multi task and handle a dynamic working environment
5. Resilient attitude to bounce back after failing

About Us

Exponent simplifies energy for EVs.

Co-founded by Arun Vinayak (Ather Energy's Founding Partner & Former Chief Product Officer) and Sanjay Byalal (Former hardware strategic sourcing and cell strategy lead, Ather and Former Supply Chain Lead, HUL), Exponent focuses on solving two sides of the energy problem by building the e^pump (charging station) and e^pack (battery pack) which together unlock 15-min rapid charging.

The 200+ strong team of passionate builders has a ton of EV experience and is currently looking for more builders to join one of the best EV teams in India to build & scale Exponent.