Director, Wet Lab Engineering

Generate Biomedicines; Somerville (MA); On-site; USD 189,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Generate Biomedicines is seeking a Director of Wet Lab Engineering to lead a multidisciplinary team spanning hardware, optics, microfluidics, automation, and software. This leader will define the laboratory of the future, building instruments and integrated systems that connect experiments with data, computation, and AI to accelerate therapeutic discovery.

The ideal candidate combines deep technical depth with people leadership, guiding 10–15 engineers, partnering with scientists, and delivering

Qualifications

• 10+ years of engineering leadership experience.
• Experience leading multidisciplinary teams.
• Familiarity with hardware, optics, microfluidics, automation, and software.
• Comfort partnering with scientists and translating needs into systems.
• Experience in robotics is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a multidisciplinary team of engineers across hardware, optics, and software.
• Set the technical vision for Wet Lab Engineering.
• Drive bespoke instruments and integrated systems from concept to deployment.
• Advance autonomous, agentic laboratory operations.
• Collaborate with wet-lab scientists, biologists, computational scientists, and ML teams to translate needs into working systems.
• Foster creativity, technical excellence, and rapid experimentation.

Skills

People management

Robotics

Biotech workflows

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

AI/ML familiarity

Education

PhD or Master’s in physical engineering

Job description

The Role:

Generate Biomedicines is seeking a Director of Wet Lab Engineering to lead our multidisciplinary team in building the technologies that will define the next generation of experimental science. The team spans hardware, optics, microfluidics, automation, and software, and develops novel instruments, automated workflows, and integrated experimental systems that connect the physical laboratory with data, computation, and AI to accelerate the discovery and development of protein and biologic therapeutics.

This is an exciting opportunity for someone who is deeply technical, creative, and a people-focused engineering leader who can help define the laboratory of the future and then build it. This leader will shape our vision for increasingly agentic laboratory operations, bringing together instruments, robotics, software, new assays and data types, and AI to enable experiments at unprecedented speed, complexity, and scale. The ideal candidate will have deep expertise in at least one physical engineering discipline, along with the technical breadth and judgment to lead across many others, recognize excellent engineering, and bring people and technologies into systems that are more powerful than their individual components.

Importantly, Wet Lab Engineering is embedded within a highly technology-driven therapeutics organization, where the systems we build are not ends in themselves: enabling biological discovery, platform development, and therapeutic programs. We value leaders who are genuinely energized and engaged by biology and drug discovery, comfortable partnering closely with scientists, and able to understand the purpose behind an assay or workflow. The ideal leader will be motivated by seeing engineering translate into better experiments, faster learning, and ultimately better medicines.

Here’s how you will contribute:

• Lead, develop, and grow a multidisciplinary team of engineers spanning hardware, optical, microfluidic, automation, and software engineering.


• Set the technical vision for Wet Lab Engineering and identify opportunities where new engineering capabilities can fundamentally change how we do science.


• Drive the development of bespoke instruments, automation, and integrated experimental systems from early ideas through deployed capabilities.


• Advance our vision for increasingly autonomous and agentic laboratory operation, tightly connecting physical experimentation with software, data, and AI/ML.


• Work side-by-side with wet-lab scientists, biologists, computational scientists, and ML teams to rapidly understand scientific needs and translate them into working systems, with a strong sense of urgency around shared platform development and pipeline execution goals.


• Build a culture of creativity, technical excellence, rapid experimentation, and rigorous engineering.

The Ideal Candidate will have:

• A deeply technical engineering leader with 10+ years of relevant industry experience and a PhD or Masters degree in a physical engineering discipline,; equivalent depth of research and industry experience will also be considered.


• An inventive builder and systems thinker with a forward-looking perspective on experimental science, able to recognize opportunities where engineering can fundamentally change how science is done and energized by integrating instrumentation, automation, robotics, and other technologies into capabilities that do not yet exist.


• A proven and excellent hands-on people manager with experience leading and developing multidisciplinary technical teamsof 10-15 people, providing strong technical direction while creating space for domain experts to excel.


• Familiar with the technologies, assays, and workflows used in biotechnology and drug discovery, particularly in protein and biologic research, and comfortable working closely with scientists across disciplines.


• Possesses the technical range to engage meaningfully across hardware, automation, software, data, and AI/ML.


• Ideally, brings experience in robotics and robotic system development.

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About Generate:Biomedicines

We are a clinical-stage generative biology company pioneering the AI revolution in drug design and development. We are advancing a new approach to drug creation—one grounded in the ability to design proteins with defined biological intent. By integrating machine learning with large-scale experimentation, this approach aims to reduce the uncertainty, time, and cost associated with developing protein-based medicines.

Founded in 2018, we are advancing a growing pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs across multiple disease areas and protein modalities. By unifying computational design and clinical development within a single operating model, we translate this approach into clinical-stage programs and are leading a shift from traditional drug discovery toward systematic drug generation.

At Generate:Biomedicines, we collaborate across disciplines in new ways to invent and innovate. We bring diverse perspectives to a shared goal of delivering better medicines to patients in need, faster, guided by our values and leadership behaviors.

Generate:Biomedicines is 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.

Compensation:

The base salary range provided reflects our current estimate of what we anticipate paying for this position. Your actual base salary will be based on several factors, including job-related skills, experience, internal equity, relevant education or training, and market dynamics. In addition, you will be eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and a competitive benefits package.

Per Year Salary Range

$189,000—$260,000 USD