Staff Automation Engineer at Eikon Therapeutics

Eikon Therapeutics is a new biopharmaceutical company employing revolutionary technology at the intersection of chemistry, engineering, computation, and biology to discover novel treatments for life-threatening diseases. Eikon’s discovery platform is built on groundbreaking innovations from its founders (Nobel Prize, 2014), culminating in the creation of microscopes which enable real time, molecular-resolution measurements of protein movement in living cells, thereby unlocking otherwise intractable classes of proteins as drug targets.

Position

As a Staff Automation Engineer, you will collaborate with scientists, mechanical engineers, and service engineers to adapt and maintain scientific processes on automated platforms. Develop corrective actions to ensure reliable performance across various equipment and automation systems. Identify and implement opportunities to automate manual processes and enhance existing systems. Coordinate with equipment manufacturers and third-party services for purchasing and integration. Strong communication and adaptability are key to success in this role.

About You

You possess extensive expertise in liquid handling, mastering the use of schedulers and creating tools to provide a streamlined and reliable user experience. Your dedication to delivering exceptional service and proactively addressing potential issues is a notable strength. You thrive in a collaborative environment with a team of innovators and problem solvers. If you are passionate about integrating robotics into scientific processes and eager to explore new liquid handling technologies, this role may be an ideal fit for you.

What You’ll Do

• Partner with scientists and engineers to understand a scientific process in order to shepherd its transition onto an automated platform or instrument.
• You will identify and characterize opportunities for improvement in producing repeatable, high quality data.
• You will write new liquid handler methods or update existing methods, work with the users to qualify the methods and release them for general use.
• You will write new work cell methods or VWorks protocols to run new assay types on existing high throughput platforms.
• Partner with mechanical engineering team to design custom solutions for laboratory problems.
• You will design, develop and qualify new work cells for high throughput biology experiments.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's with 8 years of experience, or Master's degree with 6 years of experience or PhD in Biology, Chemistry, Biochemistry  with 3 years of experience.
• Experience designing, building, programming and qualifying automated work cells under a scheduler (eg: VWorks, Overlord, Cellario, Hamilton, GBG etc). Significant experience with VWorks is highly encouraged.
• Expertise in liquid handler method development on platforms like HamiltonSTAR or Vantage, Tecan Fluent or Evo, Bravo, and EL406 plate washers. Preference for methods developed for automated cell culture.
• Experience with culturing and handling of cell cultures (iPSC, adherent or suspension mammalian cells) is a plus.
• Experience integrating work cell generated data with a LIMS system is preferred.
• Experience qualifying and deploying laboratory equipment into research or regulated environments.
• Experience managing and delivering projects with a capex budget of $1M+.
• Experience delivering detailed documentation, user training material and programming guides for the systems you have launched into research or production environments.
• Experience supporting laboratory equipment and troubleshooting automation instrument or software errors.
• Excellent communication and organizational skills.
• Experience developing software tools to support data tracking, integrations with LIMS systems is preferred.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Experience developing and monitoring uptime metrics.
• Experience effectively communicating with and managing third party service providers and vendors.
• You thrive in team environments, seek opportunities for collaboration and value team members success as much as your own.

At Eikon, employee compensation also includes bonus and equity compensation, in addition to several generous benefit programs, including:

• 401k plan with company matching
• Medical (premiums covered by Eikon at 95%), dental and vision insurance (premiums covered by Eikon at 100%)
• Mental health and wellness benefits
• Weeklong summer and winter holiday shutdowns
• Generous paid time off and holiday policies
• Life/AD&D Insurance (premiums covered by Eikon at 100%) and optional supplemental employee-paid life/AD&D policies
• Enhanced parental leave benefit
• Daily subsidized lunch program when on-site

The expected salary range for this role is $147,000 to $160,550 depending on skills, competency, and the market demand for your expertise.

Eikon is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants for employment.

In accordance with the Company’s duty to provide and maintain a safe workplace, the Company requires all employees to be Fully Vaccinated with one of the FDA approved COVID-19 vaccines, which includes those vaccines that have received the FDA’s emergency use authorization. You will be expected to be Fully Vaccinated as of your Start Date. If you believe that you are exempt from this requirement under an applicable law or regulations, including Americans with Disabilities Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act, you will need to contact the Company’s Human Resources group. For purposes of this section, Fully Vaccinated means (i) the completion of the vaccination regimen as approved by the FDA (by way of example, 2 doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine and 1 dose of the Johnson and Johnson vaccine), and (ii) timely receiving booster vaccination, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

We are currently not accepting any new third-party agencies or firms at this time. Please do not forward unsolicited agency resumes to our website, employees or Human Resources. Eikon Therapeutics will not pay fees to any third-party agency or firm associated with unsolicited resumes.