Field Service Engineer – Electron Microscopy – Washington DC Metro
Location: Washington DC Metro area. Field-based role with a service depot just south of DC. Approximately 50% travel across the eastern US, typically a week at a time every other week, with occasional weekend travel. Remaining time is DC-area day trips and depot work. Candidates must live within a reasonable commute of the depot; relocation is not offered.
Compensation: $90–110k base salary, commensurate with experience
Benefits: Health, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, Long Term Disability, 401K
Contact: Andrew Millar; andrew.millar@irisscientific.com; 647-205-7151
Iris Scientific is a specialty recruitment agency laser focused on the North American Scientific Instrumentation Industry.
We’re partnering with an established U.S. provider of electron microscopy, surface science and nanotechnology instrumentation to hire two Field Service Engineers for the Washington DC metro area. You’ll support a growing installed base of benchtop Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) systems across the eastern US, and that is just the starting point. Additional product lines will be added to your portfolio.
How the role is structured
This is a field role. Customers are grouped by region, so travel weeks typically run Monday to Friday covering multiple sites in the same area. You'll be on the road across the Eastern US roughly every other week, with occasional weekend or national travel. The weeks in between are spent on day trips to DC-area customers, remote troubleshooting and scheduling, and hands-on repair work at the company’s service depot just south of DC alongside the senior engineers. During the first months, time at the depot is a priority: that is where you learn the instruments and the team.
Training is a structured program at the company’s US headquarters, followed by mentoring from the lead engineer, and technical training trips to the manufacturers in Europe (Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and others).
The work
The day-to-day centres on preventive maintenance and on-site repair and support:
- Electron source replacements, pump rebuilds and maintenance
- Mechanical alignments, detector and software upgrades
- Functional testing and system troubleshooting
- Depot repair work between travel weeks
Customers include universities, government labs, technology startups and multinational corporations doing some of the most interesting research in the country.
Two profiles we’re hiring for
- An experienced FSE: you have several years of multi-site field service on complex scientific, analytical, electron-optical or other high-tech instrumentation, and you know the rhythm of the job: owning a territory, scheduling, parts, customer communication, service reports, working independently on the road. Mass spectrometry, AFM, e-beam, X-ray, vacuum systems and similar platforms translate well.
- A hands-on builder earlier in their path: you’re coming out of a lab, core facility or technical role where you built, maintained, repaired and modified advanced instrumentation - ideally with electron microscopy; the person who did the teardowns, coordinated with vendor service engineers and kept the equipment running. We’ll train the field service side.
In both cases, what matters most is demonstrable mechanical aptitude and a genuine troubleshooting mind. This company doesn’t hand you a step-by-step manual for every fault. You’ll follow structured procedures where they exist and reason from first principles where they don’t.
You’ll thrive here if you enjoy:
- Taking complex systems apart, diagnosing mechanical or electrical issues, and putting them back together correctly
- Troubleshooting independently when documentation is incomplete
- Direct interaction with scientists and engineers at customer sites; this is a customer-facing, relationship-building role, including when things have gone wrong
- Building deep technical expertise across multiple instrument platforms, not just one product line
- Being part of a small, capable service team where your contribution is visible
What you bring:
- 2–8 years of multi-site field service experience with scientific, analytical or high-tech instrumentation; or
- A high-end instrumentation background (ideally electron microscopy) from a research setting: system building, repair and troubleshooting, typically from a graduate school laboratory or core facility environment
- Demonstrated hands-on troubleshooting and repair of electromechanical systems: mechanical assemblies, motors, motion components, sensors, basic electronics
- Exposure to board-level electronics work (PCB replacement, fault isolation) is a plus; high voltage and vacuum experience is a bonus, not a requirement
- Proven ability to diagnose root cause and determine next steps without scripted procedures
- Strong communication skills and a professional presence with customers
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a science discipline preferred; military electronics training or equivalent hands-on experience with electronic and mechanical systems considered
- Willingness and ability to travel approximately 50% across the eastern US, typically a week at a time, with occasional weekend travel and periodic international training trips
- Ability to safely lift up to 50 lbs and work at customer sites
- US citizenship, with no current or future need for visa sponsorship (required for government laboratory site access)
- SEM experience is a plus, not a requirement; full training is provided
If this sounds like you, or you know someone who is, let’s talk.