Automation Engineer III

About the role

The Automation Engineer will play a pivotal role in the Generate:Biomedicines team, contributing to the advancement of wet lab automation, instrumentation, and integrated workcells. This role involves driving reliability, troubleshooting, and method development for DNA/protein production and assay workflows, as well as building and integrating custom instrument capabilities into the Generate Biomedicines platform.

Responsibilities

• Drive reliability, troubleshooting, and method development for DNA/protein production and assay workflows on integrated workcells.
• Build, adapt, and integrate custom instrument capabilities into Generate’s wet-lab platform, including in-house-built hardware, fluidic systems, or related technologies into scientist-facing workflows.
• Own critical automation and instrumentation problems end-to-end, from method design and system improvement through live troubleshooting on active runs, vendor coordination, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
• Partner closely with scientists to provide high-quality in-lab support, unblock experiments quickly, and identify new automation- or engineering-enabled capabilities that reduce timelines for production, scale-up, and future platform workflows.

Requirements

• BS with 5+ years industry experience in lab automation and analytical & process instrumentation development, or MS with 3+ years industry experience, or PhD in engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, life sciences, or a related field.
• Strong experience with liquid handlers and integrated workcells, including platforms such as Biomek, Tecan, Lynx, Hamilton, Opentrons, and/or similar systems.
• Experience owning workflows end-to-end, from method design and execution through debugging, documentation, and operational support.
• A strong drive to proactively hand-off workflows to scientists in a way that improves adoption, increases autonomy, and effective use of automation tools.
• Exceptional communication skills and proactivity to facilitate interactions between scientists, engineers, and other stakeholders that span a range of technical and scientific languages.

Qualifications

• Experience supporting DNA production, protein production, protein purification, cell culture, functional & binding assays, and/or related molecular biology workflows at scale.
• Significant experience with HighRes, Retisoft, and/or other advanced scheduling and orchestration systems and integrated hardware environments.
• Experience supporting platform transfer, vendor coordination, user training, or expansion of methods across multiple instruments and lab locations.
• Experience working in a highly collaborative, matrixed research environment where automation, platform engineering, and discovery teams are tightly integrated.

Skills

• Strong expertise in liquid handling, workcell automation, troubleshooting, scripting, and method development.
• Experience building, adapting, or integrating instrumentation in close partnership with scientists and the rest of the engineering team.
• Exceptional communication skills and proactivity to facilitate interactions between scientists, engineers, and other stakeholders.
• Experience developing and/or deploying wet lab-facing agentic applications, e.g. closed-loop experimental systems.
• Experience building, integrating, or supporting custom instrumentation, fluidic systems, and/or microfluidic devices in an R&D environment.

Benefits

Generate Biomedicines offers a competitive benefits package, including health insurance, retirement plans, paid time off, and opportunities for professional growth and development.

Pay

Per Year Salary Range $100,000—$140,000 USD

Schedule

Full-time position