Automation Engineer

We’re looking for an Automation Engineer who will take ownership of automating our in-house manufacturing and research protocols, evolve these systems into robust production-grade infrastructure, and deploy them to our manufacturing and research teams. You will collaborate closely with our team of biologists, engineers, and biomanufacturers, beginning by building on our existing automation stack (Opentrons) to automate critical processes and high-throughput Compositional Biology experiments. Your work will contribute directly to ouropen-source synthetic cell platform, advancing both our internal capabilities and the broader open-source ecosystem driving compositional biology forward.

Geographic Considerations: Full-time in-person (San Francisco, CA) Responsibilities Collaborate with biologists and engineers to convert manual processes into reliable, high-throughput, automated workflows. Build upon, extend, and maintain our internal codebase for automation (e.G Opentrons and related systems) Design, run, and analyze experiments to develop and validate automated processes. Translate automated processes to lab operations through documentation, training, and ongoing technical support.

Design and implement metrics, standards, and QC to ensure liquid handling reproducibility and consistency. Operate and monitor automated processes for ongoing research and development projects. Onboard, operate, and support key lab and automation equipment. (e.G., Plate Readers, LabChip, etc.).

Document automation workflows, interfaces, and best practices for team scalability. Contribute to long-term platform strategy—improving the pace and reliability of our bioengineering efforts. Qualifications Demonstrated success automating biological or chemical processes. 2+ years experience in lab automation, preferably with Opentrons, Hamilton, or Tecan systems.

Understanding of and practical experience with wet-lab molecular biology or related field. Strong Python development skills (e.G., architecture, API design, version control, documentation, unit and integration testing) Familiarity with lab data management (e.G., analytical data, plate maps, workflow orchestration, instrument logs, metadata standards). Experience implementing QC or analytical feedback loops in automated workflows.

Strong written and oral communication, and collaboration practices. Detail-oriented, systematic thinker with an ability to bridge experimental workflows to code. Bonus Expertise Experience with custom hardware integrations and robotic peripherals.

Experience in biomanufacturing, protein production, synthetic biology. Experience with computational scientific analysis tools (e.G. Jupyter, Marimo).

Experience with workflow automation tools (e.G., NextFlow, SnakeMake, Apache Airflow). Ability to connect lab automation to broader digital infrastructure (e.G., LIMS, scheduling, data analytics). Comfortable onboarding, maintaining, and troubleshooting diverse lab instruments.

What We Offer Direct influence on the architecture of our biological manufacturing platform. Close collaboration with an interdisciplinary team shaping the future of compositional biology. A dynamic startup environment where innovation and impact happen daily. #J-18808-Ljbffr