Research Engineer

Cleveland-Cliffs Steel has an immediate opportunity for a Metallurgical Research Engineer at our Research & Innovation Center in Middletown, Ohio. The Metallurgical Research Engineer serves as a technical leader for alloy and process designs beginning in the laboratory stage and scaling up to industrial production. This role will entail optimization of microstructure development through alloy and process designs to meet demanding performance requirements for new Advanced High Strength Steel grade developments.

Summary of Responsibilities:

• Product development of Advanced High Strength Steel grades, through laboratory and industrial scale experiments
• Conduct alloy and process design of new steel grades using numerical, laboratory, and commercial tools.  Specifically:
  • Use of numerical models and commercial software (e.g. CALPHAD and regression models) to design new alloys
  • Use of bench-top and pilot scale laboratory methods to assess and optimize new alloy designs for a variety of material performance characteristics
• Develop new steel products working with cross functional development teams consisting of Project Manager, Applications Engineer, Advanced Engineering, Quality, and Operations
• Identify and pursue new and innovative product ideas and opportunities related to new steel grades and new tools that aid the ability to create and evaluate these materials
• Support customer inquiries and troubleshooting steel products
• Support qualification testing for new and existing steel products.  This will require significant expertise in characterization of metallic materials
• Support productivity and quality improvement programs to reduce production costs, increase operations efficiency, or increase product robustness
• Champion fundamental metallurgical research to advance the state of the art of understanding within the organization
• May require approximately 10-20% travel
• Other duties as assigned

Minimum Qualifications:

• Master's or PhD in metallurgical/Materials Engineering or Materials Science
• Experience (including graduate studies) in metals research or product development
• Experience in design of experiments
• Expertise in physical metallurgy
• Expertise in mechanical metallurgy
• Expertise in mechanical testing of metals

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD degree in Metallurgical/Materials Engineering or Materials Science
• Experience (including graduate studies) in ferrous metals research or product development
• Related experience with Advanced High Strength Steel grades and microstructures
• Experience in CALPHAD Thermodynamic Computer Simulations
• Expertise in alloy design
• Experience scaling up from laboratory to commercial scale

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is the largest flat-rolled steel company and the largest iron ore pellet producer in North America. The Company is vertically integrated from mined raw materials, direct reduced iron, and ferrous scrap to primary steelmaking and downstream finishing, stamping, tooling, and tubing. We offer an excellent total compensation package including competitive pay with variable compensation opportunity, health insurance, retirement plan, education assistance, paid time off and more. 

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process, please send an e-mail to  or call and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Do not email your application materials to this email address. Application materials sent to this email address will not be considered.

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is an equal opportunity employer – M/F/Veteran/Disability. We are a drug-free workplace and conduct pre-employment screening as a condition of employment.