What are your primary job responsibilities?

Product development, advising other team members on chemistry matters, supporting manufacturing

What is a typical work day-in-your-life like?

Keeping track of a variety of projects and their tasks, literature research, communication and documentation of results, working on an interdisciplinary team, troubleshooting, sample testing in a lab, data analysis, meetings, informal discussions

How did you find your first job?

Applying to jobs on job boards and at individual companies online, making sure to customize resumes and cover letters when possible

What level of education (Bachelor's, Masters, PhD, etc.) is required to do your job? 

Bachelor’s

What is your work schedule like? Do you ever work weekends or nights?

About 8 hour days, more as I wish but it is not necessarily expected. Some weekends but at my choosing and not by request.

Do you travel for work? If so, in what capacity, and how often?

About once or twice a year to manufacturing sites or suppliers

What is your work environment like? Do you work mostly with a team or mostly independently? Do you stand, sit, or move most of the day?

Lab and office, combination of with a team and independently, maybe 30:70 moving:sitting

What are some tools or skills that you can't live without? These can be technologies, soft skills, hardware, or anything else you can think of.

Literature research, trying to figure things out independently but pulling in the right people when needed to be efficient, ability to learn quickly, listening to others closely, an understanding of electrochemical circuits, asking questions to myself and others, attention to detail, questioning when things don’t appear right

Do you have any habits that are essential to your professional success that you wish you started earlier?

Consistent literature study of a variety of chemistry topics and fields adjacent to it: learning new things helps to generate potentially novel ideas and with problem solving

What's the best career advice you've ever received? What career advice would you give to someone starting out in your field?

To admit when you don’t know something: it helps others to build trust and respect for you and for you to have the opportunity to learn what you don’t know. It is accepted to say you don’t know and that you can find out. Then follow through on that.