Automation Engineer – Lab Robotics & Synthesis Systems

Capable; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Wellness budget

Healthcare coverage

HSA/401K

Daily team dinners

Visa sponsorship

Job summary

Capable Labs in San Francisco seeks a hands-on engineer to design and build automated drug-development workflows, from peptide synthesis to instrumentation. You will work closely with chemists, biologists, and other engineers to convert manual processes into reliable automated systems.

This role is highly hands-on, involving building, integrating, and debugging equipment used daily by researchers, with ownership of subsystems and a focus on throughput, purity, and yield.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building and maintaining automation systems or lab instruments.
• Strong troubleshooting across hardware, controls, and process conditions.
• Ability to own subsystems and communicate tradeoffs with scientists and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Design and build electromechanical and fluidic systems for automated synthesis and lab workflows.
• Select and integrate pumps, valves, tubing, reactors, sensors, heaters, motors, and controllers.
• Develop controls for sequencing, flow, temperature, sensing, and fault detection.
• Connect instruments and quality-control workflows into automated processes.
• Build and debug prototypes and iterate based on test results.
• Collaborate with scientists to improve throughput and reproducibility.

Skills

Automation systems

Mechanical systems

Electrical systems

Troubleshooting

Ownership

multidisciplinary collaboration

Education

Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical, Biomedical or Bioengineering background

Tools

Laboratory automation hardware

Job description

Capable Labs in San Francisco seeks a hands-on engineer to design and build automated drug-development workflows, from peptide synthesis to instrumentation. You will work closely with chemists, biologists, and other engineers to convert manual processes into reliable automated systems.

This role is highly hands-on, involving building, integrating, and debugging equipment used daily by researchers, with ownership of subsystems and a focus on throughput, purity, and yield.