Lead, Physical Sciences Automation

The Company 

Lila Sciences is a privately held, early-stage technology company pioneering the application of artificial intelligence to transform every aspect of the scientific method. FL97 is backed by Flagship Pioneering, which brings the courage, long-term vision, and resources needed to realize unreasonable results. Join our mission-driven team and contribute to the future of science. 

Our platform is integrating AI and automation into discovery and development efforts across materials and life sciences to accelerate solutions for sustainability and therapeutics challenges. 

At Lila, we are uniquely cross-functional and collaborative. We are actively reimagining the way teams work together and communicate. Therefore, we seek individuals with an inclusive mindset and a diversity of thought. Our teams thrive in unstructured and creative environments. All voices are heard because we know that experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. 

If this sounds like an environment you’d love to work in, even if you only have some of the experience listed below, please apply. 

Role:

Lila Sciences is seeking a highly skilled and hands-on Team Lead and Principal Automation Engineer to lead the design, development, and implementation of automation solutions for a broad range of material workflows. Reporting directly to the Director of Automation, this role combines technical leadership with active involvement in the lab, driving the development of scalable, high-throughput automated systems. 

The successful candidate will play a pivotal role in shaping the group's automation strategy, collaborating with hardware, controls, and software teams, and mentoring engineers while actively contributing to experimental automation in a highly dynamic research environment. 

Responsibilities Include: 

Leadership & Collaboration: 

• Work closely with the Director of Automation to define strategic goals, prioritize projects, and develop roadmaps for automation initiatives. 
• Lead and mentor a multidisciplinary team of automation engineers, fostering professional growth and technical excellence. 
• Collaborate directly with the hardware and controls teams to design and integrate custom instrumentation and automated workflows. 
• Serve as a technical liaison between the automation team and other cross-functional teams, including materials scientists, machine learning experts, and software engineers. 

Technical Responsibilities 

• Actively contribute to hands-on development, testing, and implementation of automated workflows in the lab. 
• Develop scalable automated solutions for synthesis and characterization workflows, supporting a variety of material systems such as porous materials, catalysts, coatings, and advanced composites. 
• Write Python code for laboratory equipment control, experimental data acquisition, and AI-driven decision-making integration. 
• Develop the instrument control software codebase and deployment strategy to realize custom workcell-specific deployments with unified monitoring, fault recovery, networking, etc. protocols 
• Troubleshoot and optimize automated systems for throughput, reliability, and adaptability across diverse workflows. 
• Implement failure detection methods and maintain laboratory automation systems to ensure robust operations. 

Project Management & Innovation 

• Utilize project management tools such as JIRA to oversee project progress, allocate resources, and coordinate efforts across teams. 
• Translate scientific goals into technical automation workflows that meet performance and scalability requirements. 
• Explore and integrate emerging technologies, such as robotics, machine vision, and advanced sensors, to enhance automation capabilities. 
• Ensure alignment of automation solutions with safety, quality, and regulatory standards. 

Qualifications: 

• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Materials Science, Chemistry, Engineering, or a related field. 
• Strong hands-on experience developing and scaling automated workflows in laboratory or industrial settings. 
• Expertise in Python programming, including API integration and error handling. 
• Demonstrated expertise in CAD design and rapid prototyping, including 3D printing. 
• Hands-on experience with hardware systems, including electrical wiring, sensors, liquid/gas plumbing, and PID controllers. 
• Strong critical thinking skills, attention to detail, and ability to work collaboratively in a dynamic environment. 
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to convey technical concepts clearly to diverse audiences. 
• Experience programming and training robotic systems, such as pick-and-place robots. 
• Familiarity with advanced experimental systems, including vacuum, laser, furnace, and electrochemical experimentation. 
• Knowledge of machine vision applications and robotics control algorithms. 
• Proven ability to integrate hardware and controls systems with automation workflows. 
• Understanding of AI-driven decision-making in research automation. 
• Prior experience leading technical teams in a fast-paced R&D environment. 

Working at Lila Sciences, you would have access to advanced technology in the areas of: 

• AI experimental design and simulation 
• Automated custom instrumentation 
• Generative molecular and material design 

About Flagship

Flagship Pioneering is a platform innovation company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity’s most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture.  Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE’s “Change the World” list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company’s annual list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com.

Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background.