Senior Principal Engineer, Agentic AI Lab Automation

Lilly Group; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 87,000 - 222,000; Full time

Job summary

Lilly seeks a highly skilled engineer to bridge agentic AI with physical lab systems, accelerating molecule discovery. You will build practical integrations with robotic platforms, analytical instruments, and data pipelines, prototyping quickly and productionizing successful solutions.

Collaborate with chemists, biologists, and automation engineers to deploy intelligent systems that streamline DMTA workflows and enable autonomous experiments in a production lab environment.

Qualifications

• PhD (or MS + 2 yrs / BS + 5 yrs equivalent) with wet-lab automation experience.
• Experience with laboratory automation systems and LIMS engineering.
• Direct experience integrating software control and AI systems with lab automation platforms (liquid handlers, analytical instruments, robotic workflows).
• Strong experience with containerization (Docker) and Kubernetes in production.

Responsibilities

• Build multi-agent systems with robust orchestration, state management, error recovery, and tool integration.
• Prototype and iterate agent planning strategies, memory systems, and human-in-the-loop patterns.
• Design agent architectures that interface with lab automation platforms for closed-loop experiments.
• Partner with engineers and scientists to transition prototypes into reliable lab operations.

Skills

Wet-lab automation

Lab automation systems

Docker

Kubernetes

Python

Redis

FastAPI

Flask/Streamlit

Education

PhD in Chemical/Mechanical Engineering, Robotics, Computer Engineering, or related discipline

MS + 2 yrs or BS + 5 yrs equivalent experience

Tools

Hamilton

Tecan

Opentrons

Job description

Lilly seeks a highly skilled engineer to bridge agentic AI with physical lab systems, accelerating molecule discovery. You will build practical integrations with robotic platforms, analytical instruments, and data pipelines, prototyping quickly and productionizing successful solutions.

Collaborate with chemists, biologists, and automation engineers to deploy intelligent systems that streamline DMTA workflows and enable autonomous experiments in a production lab environment.