Senior Automation Engineer (Sr. Engineer II)

Generate Biomedicines•Somerville, MA

5d•$140,000 - $180,000

About The Position

Generate:Biomedicines is seeking an experienced Senior Automation Engineer to lead automation engineering at the interface of lab instrumentation, integrated workcells, custom hardware, and protein therapeutics discovery. The role sustains and advances the wet lab platform, with a focus on automated workflows spanning DNA production, protein production, cell culture, and screening and validation assays. It also builds and integrates custom instrument capabilities and leads engineering efforts involving hardware, fluidics, and systems integration. The role combines hands-on technical contribution with direct management of automation engineers. The successful candidate will apply expertise in liquid handling, workcell automation, scripting, wet lab agentic deployment, and method development, while partnering with scientists and engineers to adapt or integrate instrumentation. The position also emphasizes scalable support through training, documentation, AI, and handoff practices that increase scientist independence, as well as identifying opportunities for engineering improvements across the lab.

Requirements

BS and 7+ years of industry experience in lab automation and analytical and process instrumentation development; MS and 5+ years of industry experience; or a PhD in engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, life sciences, or a related field.
Proven leadership within a wet lab and an engineering team, including 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.
Ability and motivation to hand off workflows to scientists in ways that improve adoption, autonomy, and effective use of automation tools.
Exceptional communication and proactive collaboration with scientists, engineers, lab operations, and other stakeholders across technical and scientific disciplines.
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, 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.

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 during 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 platform 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.
Develop training, documentation, and handoff practices that improve scientist adoption, autonomy, and effective use of automation tools.