Automation Engineer

Automation Engineer

London, UK

On-site (with flexibility for hybrid working)

We’re partnered with an early-stage platform biotech startup emerging from stealth, backed by leading venture capital investors. The company is building AI-driven “self-driving laboratories” designed to transform how drug products are developed.

Their platform combines robotics, automation, and machine learning to explore vast formulation spaces, automatically design and run experiments, and continuously learn from the results. By replacing traditional trial-and-error experimentation with high-throughput automated workflows, they aim to reduce formulation development timelines from months to days while unlocking medicines that were previously too complex to develop.

Operating at the intersection of biotech, robotics, and AI, the team is building the next generation of laboratory infrastructure to accelerate pharmaceutical innovation.

You will be the person who makes the self-driving lab actually run. That means integrating robots, analytical instruments, and software into reliable, end-to-end workflows, and working closely with scientists to translate their methods into automation that holds up at scale.

Responsibilities

• Pioneer the next generation of robotic platforms for drug formulation.
• Design, implement, and scale automated liquid-handling and sample-processing workflows.
• Design and automate fully closed loop robotic systems which can be remotely operated
• Integrate instruments and robotics via APIs, SDKs, and communication protocols; own instrument driver development and maintenance.
• Build scheduling and orchestration layers for multi-instrument workflows, handling error recovery, retries, resource contention, parallelism, and state management.
• Develop robust interfacing layers and simulation environments to accelerate development and reduce deployment risk.
• Work with scientists to translate lab methods into automation-friendly procedures; work with Data/ML to stream rich telemetry and results downstream.

Requirements

• Advanced degree (PhD) or MSc with equivalent industry experience.
• Proven experience automating laboratory workflows with liquid handlers, collaborative robotic arms and common analytics instruments (plate readers, HPLC/UPLC, balances, imagers).
• Strong software skills in Python, with comfort using modern tooling: git, containers, and testing frameworks.
• Experience with lab automation schedulers (e.g., PyLabRobot, Opentrons Protocol API, or similar) and instrument SDKs.
• Background in building simulation environments to de-risk hardware integrations before deployment.
• Systems-minded: you think about reliability, failure modes, and observability from day one, not as an afterthought.

Desirable

• Experience with fabrication and prototyping, including 3D printing custom parts to adapt or extend lab equipment.
• Familiarity with data engineering or ML pipelines, particularly for streaming structured experimental telemetry.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, or regulated lab environments.

Benefits

• Competitive base salary alongside a meaningful equity package, giving you the opportunity to share in the company’s long-term success.
• The chance to have real autonomy and impact within an early-stage startup, helping shape both the scientific direction and the development of the platform.
• Direct exposure to founders and the C-suite, with the opportunity to influence strategy and decision-making as the company scales.
• A beautiful, collaborative lab and working space in the heart of Central London, designed to bring scientists, engineers, and data teams together.
• Hybrid flexibility, balancing hands-on lab work with the ability to work remotely where appropriate.

Interested? Apply and we will be in touch!