Founding Lab Operations Associate

Deliverome Bio • Cambridge, MA

94d • Onsite

About The Position

Deliverome Bio is a nonprofit startup building an open atlas of surface protein abundance and internalization. The Founding Lab Operations Associate will own operations for a new BSL-2 laboratory in Cambridge, establishing and maintaining the systems, equipment, procurement, inventory, and safety practices that enable a small scientific team to work effectively. This is a founding role with direct access to the co-founders and authority to shape lab operations. Workflows developed for the role will be documented and released alongside the organization’s protocols.

The position combines operational leadership with hands-on bench work. The associate will contribute to experiments, cell culture, cryobanking, and equipment maintenance. The balance is expected to shift over time toward a purely lab manager role, making this an opportunity for a wet-lab scientist to grow into operational leadership. The level may range from Senior Research Associate to Laboratory Operations Manager, depending on capability and experience.

Requirements

• BS or MS in a life science field, with substantial hands-on wet-lab experience.
• Strong mammalian cell culture and aseptic technique.
• Working knowledge of BSL-2 practices, chemical hygiene, and biological and chemical waste handling.
• Experience building or substantially maintaining an inventory or tracking system, with an instinct to systematize processes.
• Excellent documentation habits and comfort being the person others rely on for answers.

Nice To Haves

• New lab buildout or startup experience, including installations, permitting, and establishing systems from scratch.
• Experience with institutional or municipal biosafety registration, hazardous waste programs, or lab inspection processes.
• Practical procurement experience involving vendors, quotes, purchase orders, receiving, service contracts, and backorder follow-up.
• Experience with a cell sorter such as the Sony MA900, live-cell imaging platforms such as Incucyte, or mass spectrometry; the organization is acquiring an Evosep LC and Astral Zoom.
• Liquid nitrogen cryostorage management and cryobanking at scale.
• Regulated shipping of biological materials, including dry ice and Category B shipments, and material transfer agreement logistics.
• BSL2+ experience with lentivirus production and transduction.
• Experience with or interest in light scripting or automation, such as Apps Script, Python, or comparable tools, supported by AI tools.
• Industry startup experience is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own day-to-day lab function, including reagent and consumable availability, waste streams, gas and liquid nitrogen supply, autoclave and water systems, and shared bench and cold-storage organization.
• Build, maintain, and continuously improve operational systems for inventory, ordering, receiving, equipment logs, sample and cell-line tracking, and freezer maps.
• Set and enforce standards for labeling, stock and aliquot management, expiration and lot tracking, cleanup, and shared-resource resets.
• Onboard new scientists through training, access, safety guidance, and practical lab orientation.
• Manage procurement end to end, including quotes, purchase orders, capital equipment purchases, receiving, reconciliation, backorders, and substitutions.
• Manage vendor and distributor relationships, negotiate pricing and standing orders, and apply nonprofit tax exemption correctly.
• Track consumable burn rates and establish reorder points; support budget tracking and grant-aware purchasing with the co-founders and bookkeeping.
• Own instrument operations, including installation and commissioning coordination, preventive maintenance, service contracts, calibration, field service visits, and downtime escalation.
• Support and help maintain core instruments, including a cell sorter, live-cell imaging systems, centrifuges, biosafety cabinets, incubators, cryogenic storage, and balances.
• Build on monitoring and alarm systems for freezers, incubators, and cryostorage, and develop response plans for equipment failures.
• Evaluate and specify new equipment, including used and auction purchases where appropriate.
• Own practical lab safety, including chemical hygiene, biosafety practices and training, PPE, spill response, hazardous and biological waste manifests, and oxygen monitoring where cryogens are used.
• Support institutional biosafety and municipal registration requirements, permit renewals, and inspection readiness; keep documentation audit-ready.
• Manage shipping and receipt of biological materials, including dry ice and regulated shipments, and support material transfer agreement logistics.
• Perform mammalian cell culture, cryobanking, routine cell-line maintenance, lentivirus preparations, authentication, and mycoplasma testing.
• Support occasional platform experiments and prepare and quality-control common reagents, media, and buffers.
• Maintain clear records of experimental work and report unsuccessful results as well as successful ones.
• Write usable SOPs, identify and eliminate recurring failure modes, and contribute operational protocols and workflow documentation to open releases.

Benefits

• Full health benefits.
• Dental benefits.
• Retirement benefits.
• Competitive salary benchmarked to industry rates.
• Founding team role with the opportunity to shape the platform and organization.
• Open-science work that will be published and used globally.
• Collaboration with advisors across proteomics, functional genomics, targeted delivery, and AI.

What This Job Offers

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