Apply Your Ph.D. for R&D Achievement

See Your Work Come to Life in Real-World Applications

What can Ph.D. scientists and engineers expect as a member of the Phillips 66 Research Team? New hires begin their career on the technical ladder, conducting research within various projects that support long- and short-term objectives. As employees’ careers advance, they have the option to remain on the technical ladder or move to the management ladder. Crossover between the ladders is common and is managed by the Talent Management Team with input from the employee.

Empowering Our Employees

Each employee is responsible for driving their own research, and each project is important to the company’s success. Researchers are encouraged to be creative, innovative, and collaborative within and outside of their own research groups. Research opportunities are available in areas such as the following:

• Refining
• Catalysis
• Kinetics
• Advanced refining process optimization (upgrading, conversion)
• Advantaged feedstocks including renewables
• Lubricants
• Predictive modeling
• Corrosion
• Environment & Sustainability
• Atmospheric sciences
• Water conservation, remediation, and treatment
• Analytical
• Material Sciences
• Alternative Energy
• Battery technologies
• Fuel cells
• Photovoltaics
• Data Analytics
• Robotics

There are also development opportunities to expand your skill sets in one of our refineries or other businesses within the company. The development and potential commercialization of new technologies for real-world applications provides R&D professionals with significant business exposure and career growth opportunities.

Career Growth Opportunities

In line with our culture of lifelong learning, we encourage our Ph.D. researchers to attend academic and industry conferences and technical workshops every year. Outside firms also offer internally-developed training programs and courses at company locations.

New hires are encouraged to take advantage of a strong culture of mentorship by more senior employees. In addition, the Talent Management Team, made up of leadership and senior technical personnel, works with new researchers and their supervisors to find early career growth opportunities. These opportunities could include:

• Leading a site-wide safety effort
• Starting a research project in a new area
• Leading a small research team
• Leading a significant support effort for another business unit
• Temporary development assignment in another business unit

We strongly value and encourage diversity of thought and collaboration to advance the goals of the company. We seek individuals who can be innovative and creative in the research and development of new technologies.