Agentic automation, Frontier AI

Eli Lilly and Company • San Francisco, CA

3d

About The Position

The Agent Automation role is part of Frontier AI within Lilly Small Molecule Discovery’s Discovery Technology and Platforms function. Frontier AI combines scientific agentic AI, laboratory automation, and unified data platforms to autonomously design, run, and refine experiments to accelerate molecule discovery.

The role will rebuild the Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) cycle by connecting agentic AI, cloud-based orchestration, and LIMS infrastructure with experimental readouts and tools for laboratory science. The engineer will build integrations between AI agents and physical laboratory systems, including robotic platforms, analytical instruments, and data pipelines. They will design workflows that reason over experimental data, trigger automated actions, and present insights to scientists.

This is a hands-on engineering role involving rapid prototyping and productionization in collaboration with chemists, biologists, and automation engineers. The position includes developing multi-agent systems and agent architectures for closed-loop experiments, deploying and maintaining containerized services, and representing Frontier AI in internal and external AI communities.

Requirements

• MS plus 1 year, or BS plus 3 years of equivalent experience, in Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, or a related discipline, with demonstrated wet-lab automation experience.
• Demonstrated experience with laboratory automation systems and LIMS/ELN integration.
• Direct experience integrating software control and/or AI systems with laboratory automation platforms, such as liquid handlers, analytical instruments, robotic workflows, high-throughput experimentation, or flow chemistry.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes-based orchestration in cloud or production environments.
• Experience building scalable, production-level Python applications using tools such as LangChain/LangGraph, AutoGen, or OpenTelemetry.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; Lilly will not support or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role.

Nice To Haves

• GitHub portfolio.
• Experience with LLM post-training, fine-tuning, or RLHF.
• Experience deploying closed-loop autonomous experimentation in which agents plan, execute, and analyze experiments on physical instruments with minimal human intervention.
• Proven ability to build and maintain the translation layer between high-level planning logic and low-level instrument control.
• Demonstrable research experience, ideally including publications in relevant ML/NLP venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, or CVPR.

Responsibilities

• Build multi-agent systems with robust orchestration, state management, error recovery, and tool integration.
• Prototype and iterate on agent planning strategies, memory systems, and human-in-the-loop patterns.
• Design agent architectures that interface with laboratory automation platforms such as Hamilton, Tecan, and Opentrons for closed-loop experimental execution.
• Partner with automation engineers and scientists to transition prototypes into reliable laboratory operations.
• Deploy and maintain containerized services using Docker and Kubernetes, with GitOps and CI/CD practices.
• Integrate cloud-based orchestration frameworks such as Argo on Kubernetes with laboratory control systems.
• Represent Frontier AI in the broader AI@Lilly and external AI research community through activities such as publishing, giving talks, reviewing papers, and scouting emerging trends.
• Evaluate external vendors, open-source projects, and academic collaborations for strategic fit.

Benefits

• Company bonus, depending in part on company and individual performance.
• Eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k).
• Pension.
• Vacation benefits.
• Eligibility for medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug benefits.
• Flexible benefits, including healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts.
• Life insurance and death benefits.
• Certain time-off and leave-of-absence benefits.
• Well-being benefits, including an employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level