Robotics & Automation Engineer

Robotics & Laboratory Automation Engineer – TechBio

South San Francisco | On-site | Full-time

Build a new automated biology lab from the ground up—and help shape how experiments are designed, executed and connected to AI.

This is an opportunity to take ownership of the robotics, instrument integrations and software behind a high-throughput experimental platform. You’ll work directly with scientists and ML researchers, making decisions that influence the lab’s capabilities from the outset and seeing your work translate into better scientific data.

About the Company

Aspire Life Sciences is partnering with a growing TechBio company combining human-relevant experimental biology with AI to help scientists understand how potential medicines behave.

Working with pharmaceutical partners, the company connects rich laboratory measurements with computational models to support better drug-development decisions. Its new South San Francisco laboratory will expand the experimental capabilities underpinning that work.

The Role

You’ll turn individual instruments into a reliable, connected experimental platform, owning the software and integrations from initial design through to daily operation.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Building software to control laboratory instruments and robotics, coordinating workflows from sample preparation through to data collection.
• Integrating liquid handlers, robotic arms, incubators, imaging systems and analytical instruments.
• Working with scientists to translate biological assays into automated protocols that preserve scientific intent.
• Developing scheduling and execution systems that coordinate shared equipment and manage time-sensitive experimental steps.
• Building monitoring and safe recovery processes so workflows handle failures reliably.
• Connecting samples, protocol versions, instrument actions, metadata and raw results into a traceable experimental history.
• Improving throughput, equipment utilisation and data quality through practical changes to software and workflow design.
• This is a hands-on position: expect to write code, troubleshoot equipment at the bench and own systems after deployment.

About You

You’re a strong programmer who enjoys making software and physical equipment work together. You can move between architecture decisions, instrument debugging and conversations with scientists.

You’ll bring:

• Strong Python and software engineering fundamentals, ideally including API design, asynchronous programming or distributed systems.
• Hands-on experience integrating laboratory instruments, robotics or automated workcells.
• Experience with experiment orchestration, scheduling, instrument communication, monitoring or data capture.
• An understanding of how automation choices affect assay reproducibility and experimental quality.
• The initiative to take a problem from an initial requirement through to a working, supported system.
• Experience with platforms such as Hamilton, Tecan, PyLabRobot, Opentrons, SiLA 2 or other instrument APIs would be valuable. Familiarity with cell culture, screening, imaging, sequencing or mass spectrometry would also help.

What Makes It Attractive?

• Ownership of a new laboratory automation platform.
• Direct collaboration with scientists and ML researchers.
• Scope to influence architecture, integrations and working practices.
• Scientific applications where reliable engineering has a clear impact.

James Trott is Co-Founder of Aspire Life Sciences, supporting growing TechBio and MedTech companies with scientific and engineering hiring. Get in touch to explore whether this opportunity fits what you want to build next.