Instrument SWE/Automation Controls Engineer - Hardware Research Team
Instrument Software Engineer, Hardware Research
Synthego recently established a new research team that is focused on inventing, designing and building new and innovative hardware solutions with the explicit goal of transforming a multi-billion dollar industry. We are looking for an Instrument Software Engineer who is inspired by the possibility of being at the bleeding edge of hardware innovation and having a big impact on the future of biotech. This is an extremely exciting opportunity in which you’ll be joining a team of incredibly talented engineers in a race to build Synthego’s next hardware platform.
As the first Software Engineer on the team you’ll be directly responsible for writing the code that is powering our prototypes of novel biotech instrumentation. You’ll be taking on a lot of technical ownership, provide technical leadership with regard to software and quickly prototype novel ideas. Your work will span from writing low level drivers for actuators and sensors, to high level logic and scheduling, writing control loops, interfacing with APIs of 3rd party biotech instrumentation, logging data to AWS and visualizing this data in Tableau.
You’ll be part of a small motivated team that is moving fast. And it’s early days. This means you’ll have plenty of opportunity to contribute beyond writing code - by contributing ideas, proposing & executing experiments in the lab, and by innovating and iterating on the overall system architecture.
What You'll Do
- Rapidly writing good code that enables end-to-end demonstration of new technological capabilities
- Closely collaborate with mechanical and research engineerings
- Building the software architecture for highly complex biotech instrumentation
- Writing low level drivers for sensors and actuators
- Designing and tuning control loops & writing high level logic for our prototypes
- Logging data to AWS and visualizing this data in Tableau
- Interfacing with APIs of 3rd party biotech equipment (OPC)
- Assembling, wiring, soldering & troubleshooting of prototype technologies
- Designing and executing experiments to learn what works and what doesn’t work
- Repeat all of the above. Quickly. While having fun.
About You
- BS in CS/EE and 3+ years of industry experience
- 2+ years experience in writing and testing software for biotech instrumentation
- Excellent proficiency with Python (90%) and Structured Text on Beckhoff PLCs (10%)
- Experience with Tableau and AWS (Kinesis, Data Firehose, Redshift, CloudWatch)
- Comfortable with Linux Command Line
- Familiarity with scientific instrument control, laboratory automation and liquid handling
- You love to work in a fast-paced, innovative and collaborative startup environment
- You enjoy writing software for hardware and making robots move
- You are skilled at methodical self-management
- You have a sense of humor and great communication skills
- You strike a good balance between pragmatism and attention to detail
- You value teamwork, impact and personal growth
Nice to Haves
- You have designed, built, tested and deployed complex automated instruments
- Experience in working with cell cultures or other biotech/life sciences experience
- Microfluidics experience
- Motion and industrial controls experience
- Mechanical design & CAD experience (SolidWorks)
Company Benefits & Perks
- Competitive salary
- Generous equity at an early stage company
- Robust medical, dental and vision benefits
- 401k Plan
- Fully stocked kitchen and snacks
- Free catered lunches and dinners
- 4x daily Shuttle bus to & from San Francisco
ABOUT SYNTHEGO
Synthego’s vision is to turn biology into an information science, with the ultimate goal of dramatically extending the healthy human lifespan.
Synthego builds advanced bioinformatics and automated hardware platforms to create next-generation molecular biology tools, starting with full-stack genome engineering.
These world-class tools accelerate basic scientific discovery, critical disease cures and novel synthetic biology applications to improve and prolong life.