Experimental Systems Engineer, Analytical Chemistry

Dayhoff Labs; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

Dayhoff Labs in Cambridge, MA is hiring a hands-on engineer to prototype systems for monitoring liquid-phase chemical reaction networks in real time. You will build hardware, integrate sensors, and develop Python tools to acquire data and control instruments.

You will work closely with chemists, enzymologists, and ML engineers to turn noisy signals into reliable data and advance open-ended research in a fast-moving startup environment.

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building experimental hardware or analytical setups.
• Experience with liquid handling systems: pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, leaks, bubbles, fouling, drift.
• Experience with spectroscopy, chromatography, mass spectrometry, NMR, or electrochemical sensing.
• Practical Python for data acquisition, analysis, plotting, and automation.
• Ability to move between the wet lab, manuals, notebooks, code, and prototyping.

Responsibilities

• Design and build prototype systems for monitoring aqueous chemical reaction networks in real time
• Work with small CSTRs, flow reactors, microfluidic devices, pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, and autosamplers
• Evaluate analytical technologies including Raman, UV-Vis, fluorescence, IR, NMR, LC-MS, HPLC, electrochemical sensing, and low-cost probes
• Build Python-based tools for data acquisition, instrument control, signal processing, and visualisation
• Combine continuous measurements with sampled data to reconstruct the time evolution of chemical mixtures
• Work closely with chemists, enzymologists, computational scientists, and ML engineers to turn messy signals into useful data

Skills

Python for data acquisition

Hardware prototyping

Lab data analysis

Data visualization

Tools

Arduino

Raspberry Pi

LabJack

NI DAQ

LC-MS

NMR

Job description

About us

We're reverse-engineering the origin of life - one of the great unsolved problems in science, and one we think AI finally makes tractable. We believe that understanding this transition, from geochemistry to biochemistry, will let us orchestrate molecular networks and build systems that are more capable, adaptive, efficient, and intelligent.

If we succeed, the applications are vast: from catalysis and green synthesis to ab initio synthetic biology and programmable matter. Understanding and harnessing these processes could let ten billion of us thrive on this planet - and let us dream that diverse life keeps evolving and thriving beyond it.

We're a small, diverse team of AI engineers, computational scientists, and bench scientists. We hold ourselves to the rigor of a research institute, but we ship like an engineering firm. Global team, HQs in Cambridge, MA and London, UK.

The role

You'll build new ways of watching chemistry happen - liquid-phase reaction networks, enzymatic and not, evolving in real time. This role suits people who build things and figure things out: prototype a measurement setup, learn fast whether it tells you anything trustworthy, keep it or bin it.

What you'll do

• Design and build prototype systems for monitoring aqueous chemical reaction networks in real time

• Work with small CSTRs, flow reactors, microfluidic devices, pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, and autosamplers

• Evaluate analytical technologies including Raman, UV-Vis, fluorescence, IR, NMR, LC-MS, HPLC, electrochemical sensing, and low-cost process probes

• Build Python-based tools for data acquisition, instrument control, signal processing, and visualisation

• Combine continuous measurements with sampled analytical data to reconstruct the time evolution of chemical mixtures

• Work closely with chemists, enzymologists, computational scientists, and ML engineers to turn messy signals into useful data

Essential experience

You'll have some but not necessarily all of the following:

• Building experimental hardware or analytical setups with your own hands

• Comfort with liquid handling systems: pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, leaks, bubbles, fouling, and drift

• At least some analytical chemistry methods (spectroscopy, chromatography, mass spectrometry, NMR, or electrochemical sensing)

• Practical Python for data acquisition, analysis, plotting, and automation

• Willingness to move between the wet lab, instrument manuals, notebooks, code, and physical prototyping

• Good judgement about when a measurement is meaningful, when it is misleading, and when the setup needs rebuilding

Highly preferred

• Any of Raman, FTIR, UV-Vis, fluorescence, online NMR, LC-MS, HPLC, or MS workflows

• Lab automation: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, LabJack, NI DAQ, serial instrument control, autosamplers, or custom data logging

• Building fast prototypes in a startup, academic lab, instrument company, or hardware-heavy research environment

Logistics

Compensation is highly competitive. We're also able to sponsor visas for the right candidate.

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