Director, Sustaining Engineering & Lab Operations

What You'll Be Building

• Local Site Sustaining Engineering (incl. Maintenance Engineering)
• Build the Local Site Sustaining Engineering function from scratch in partnership with HCE and Global Engineering; incorporates Maintenance Engineering (instrument PM, calibration, first-response troubleshooting) as a sub-capability
• Own fleet reliability, incident response, and AISF health at the site — on-call rotations, severity policy, incident playbooks, RCA library
• Own deployment, commissioning, and operational readiness; partner with the Deployment Project team during stand-up and own steady-state post-handoff
• Execute the two-lane change model: route platform-critical changes (Lane A) through Global Change Control; manage bounded site-local changes (Lane B) within explicit guardrails; document and time-box emergency-path bypasses
• Provide the site signature for the dual-signoff go-live model (Platform Release Certification + Site/Workcell Commissioning acceptance)
• Drive site-level continuous improvement within platform guardrails; surface candidates for promotion into platform releases
• Triage equipment health data and act on drift signals and re-qualification triggers defined by the Equivalence Review
• Define escalation and handoff protocols between Sustaining, ME, LabOps, Research Ops, and HCE/Automation
• Represent the site in standing cadences: Platform Change Control, Release Readiness Review, Fleet Health Review, Equivalence Review
• Operating Model & Governance
• Define and own the operating model across Lila sites — from single-shift pilot to multi-site, continuous operations
• Establish org structure, staffing model, and governance framework
• Set and track KPIs (fleet uptime, MTTR, RCA close-out rate, drift response time, inventory accuracy, stockout rate, PM compliance, asset data integrity, ticket resolution); drive structured improvement cycles
• Consumables, Reagents & Supply Chain
• Own end-to-end supply chain continuity for lab consumables, reagents, and PPE across all shifts and sites
• Govern par-level inventory, reorder triggers, cold storage, and expiry tracking
• Lead dual-source qualification for high-risk consumables; build the satellite site supply chain playbook for Blueprint
• CMMS & Equipment Asset Management
• Support CMMS implementation and governance; accountable for CMMS data accuracy across commissioned instruments and mobile assets
• Define asset tagging and location tracking standards aligned with Blueprint's taxonomy
• Own PM coordination and calibration access; ensure CMMS feeds the broader system-of-record (PLM + release model) maintained by Global Engineering
• AI Integration & Continuous Improvement
• Lead Lila's thinking on AI-enabled site operations and equipment health (predictive maintenance, anomaly detection, AI-assisted RCA, predictive inventory, asset tracking)
• Bring external best practices from biotech and industrial reliability into Lila's operating model
• Vendor & Logistics
• Own vendor relationships for lab supplies, service contracts, and logistics within approved frameworks; partner with Finance/Corp Dev on contract strategy
• Oversee lab-side receiving, space readiness for instrument deployments, waste/hazmat scheduling, gas management, and cold storage
• Manage the support ticket system as the single intake for lab supply, equipment, space, and site engineering requests
• Team Leadership
• Lead, grow, and develop the team across shifts and sites; build the Local Site Sustaining Engineering team from first hire through a fully operational multi-site capability
• Define staffing models, hiring roadmaps, and capability plans for each sub-function
• Build a culture of engineering rigor, operational discipline, proactive problem-solving, and continuous improvement
• Blueprint & Multi-Site Scaling
• Author and own the Site Sustaining Engineering and LabOps chapters of Blueprint — processes, system requirements, staffing models, vendor frameworks, sustaining-readiness criteria
• Pilot the Site Launch Readiness Scorecard for each new facility; feed findings back into Blueprint
• Partner with the Director of Sustaining Engineering (Global) to keep local execution consistent with platform-level standards and to channel field learnings into platform evolution

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• 12–15+ years of engineering and operations experience with a primary background in sustaining engineering, reliability engineering, or site-level engineering execution for complex hardware-software integrated systems (automation, robotics, semiconductor, aerospace, medical devices, advanced manufacturing, or similar)
• Demonstrated track record of owning fleet reliability, incident response, and root cause analysis at scale — severity policies, RCA cadences, MTBF/MTTR programs, durable corrective actions
• Experience operating within (or building) a structured change control model — versioned releases, change boards, traceability of "what's running where" across sites
• Track record of defining and scaling sustaining or site-level engineering systems — built operating models and governance, not just inherited them
• Strong operations instincts — engineering rigor only matters if day-to-day execution (supply continuity, asset management, PM, shift coverage) actually works, and you're willing to own that scope directly
• Experience building and leading teams across multiple functions, shifts, or sites, including hiring from scratch
• Comfortable in a solid-line / dotted-line accountability structure and partnering with a central engineering authority on standards
• Recognized authority in your domain; comfortable operating as a peer to VPs and senior leaders
• Strong strategic and systems-level thinking

Bonus Points For

• Experience in a biotech or lab-based environment — consumables, reagents, instrument PM, calibration, IQ/OQ/PQ
• Experience building or overseeing a LabOps or instrument Maintenance Engineering function
• Experience with equivalence or drift-based qualification frameworks (golden runs, tolerance bands, re-qualification triggers)
• Experience applying AI or intelligent automation to equipment health and operations workflows
• Experience supporting multi-shift or 24/7 operations and on-call coverage
• Familiarity with QMS-adjacent environments (SOP control, change control, training records)
• Experience contributing to a global site deployment or standardization program
• Deep expertise in CMMS selection, implementation, and governance

Why This Role

• Lila is at an inflection point — transitioning from building our first AI Science Factory to operating many, and scientific equivalence across that fleet depends on rigorous site-level engineering execution within tightly defined platform constraints.
• The Director of Sustaining Engineering & LabOps will be a defining hire in that transition: the engineering leader who builds the site-level reliability foundation, runs the execution layer that keeps the fleet healthy, and ensures every AISF we open runs with the same rigor as the last — while owning the operational scaffolding that makes that execution possible.

Compensation

• We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity.
• Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.

About LILA

• Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.
• LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy.
• Learn more at www.lila.ai.