Senior Automation Engineer (Sr. Engineer II)

Generate Biomedicines•Somerville, MA

About The Position

Generate:Biomedicines is seeking an experienced Senior Automation Engineer to sustain and advance its wet lab platform, especially automated workflows spanning DNA and protein production, cell culture, and screening and validation assays. The role combines hands-on engineering with leadership of automation engineers, and focuses on integrating custom instrumentation, hardware, and fluidic systems into scientist-facing workflows. The engineer will also identify broader engineering opportunities that can improve scientific workflows and capabilities. The position owns automation and instrumentation challenges end-to-end, from method design and system improvement to live troubleshooting, vendor coordination, documentation, and knowledge transfer. The engineer works closely with scientists and other engineering teams to improve reliability, throughput, parallelization, and data quality, and to help develop scalable support through training, documentation, AI, and effective handoffs that increase scientist independence. The role also prioritizes projects across the automation team and manages engineers’ day-to-day work and longer-term projects, including guidance and resourcing. Generate:Biomedicines is a clinical-stage generative biology company founded in 2018. It combines machine learning and large-scale experimentation to design proteins with defined biological intent and develop protein-based medicines. The company advances clinical and preclinical programs across multiple disease areas and protein modalities.

Requirements

BS with 7+ years of industry experience in lab automation and analytical and process instrumentation development; MS with 5+ years of industry experience; or a PhD in engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, life sciences, or a related field.
A proven record of leadership in a wet lab and engineering team through project management and direct reports.
Strong experience with liquid handlers and integrated workcells, such as Biomek, Tecan, Lynx, Hamilton, Opentrons, HighRes, Retisoft, or similar systems.
Experience owning workflows end-to-end, from method design and execution through debugging, documentation, and operational support.
A strong drive to hand off workflows to scientists in ways that improve adoption, autonomy, and effective use of automation tools.
Exceptional communication skills and proactivity to facilitate interactions among scientists, engineers, lab operations, and other stakeholders with varied technical and scientific backgrounds.
Experience developing and/or deploying wet lab-facing agentic applications, such as closed-loop experimental systems.
Experience building, integrating, or supporting custom instrumentation, fluidic systems, and/or microfluidic devices in an R&D environment.

Nice To Haves

Experience supporting DNA production, protein production, protein purification, cell culture, functional and 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 in a highly collaborative, matrixed research environment where automation, platform engineering, and discovery teams are tightly integrated.

Responsibilities

Design, build, and integrate custom instrument capabilities, including in-house-built hardware and fluidic systems, into scientist-facing wet lab workflows.
Own critical automation and instrumentation problems end-to-end, including method design, system improvement, troubleshooting active runs, vendor coordination, documentation, and knowledge transfer.
Drive reliability, troubleshooting, and method development for DNA and protein production and assay/readout workflows on integrated workcells.
Improve throughput, parallelization, and data quality across platform and pipeline programs.
Partner with scientists to provide in-lab support, unblock experiments, and identify automation- or engineering-enabled capabilities that reduce timelines for production, scale-up, and future workflows.
Identify and prioritize lab automation projects across the automation engineering team and engage key stakeholders as collaborators.
Manage automation engineers’ day-to-day activities and long-term projects, providing guidance and appropriate resourcing.
Support scalable workflow handoffs through training, documentation, AI, and practices that improve scientist independence and adoption.