At Elegen, we are developing innovative technologies to unlock the SynBio revolution. We are seeking a scientist or engineer passionate about advancing biology via lab automation to become one of the founding members of our growing R&D team. As a part of our team, they will play a central role in automating molecular biology workflows for scalable production of long, perfect synthetic DNA.

This is a rare and exciting opportunity for a highly motivated and self-driven candidate to get in near the ground floor of a fast moving, very high impact start-up. In addition to working on cutting edge technology, the candidate would help us establish a strong culture of mutual respect, integrity, and collaboration while working alongside some of Silicon Valley’s best scientists and engineers.

Key Responsibilities:

• Study and analyze processes as designed, model process behaviors, and help identify key metrics.
• Translate bench scale methods into an automatable form.
• Analyze large data sets to improve process steps (efficiency, cost and throughput) and product (quality, yield, format).
• Help identify major areas of improvement and provide framework (ranges, metrics, requirements) for new process designs, outline/design experiments for this purpose.
• Clearly communicate findings to the core team, and other functional teams in the organization.
• Collaborate in process transfer for commercial scale manufacturing, partner with the Production, Automation and Software teams to troubleshoot process and method, rigorously monitor processes post transfer for a limited number of runs.

Essential Qualifications and Experience:

• PhD in the life sciences one, with 5+ years of hands-on molecular biology experience in assay, product, and/or process development.
• High proficiency in applied statistics, and understanding of fundamental concepts in statistical analysis.
• Experience developing molecular biology/biochemistry assays from conception through data analysis.
• Previous experience with process modeling and implementation of process improvements.
• Programming experience (R/Python/other, GitHub links if available) for developing custom modeling capabilities.
• Experience with nucleic acid purification, quantification and qualification, molecular cloning, PCR, and NGS sequencing.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications and Experience:

• Experience working with large data sets, and communicating data (visual communication skills a plus)
• Team player with experience of cross-functional collaborations.

Salary and Benefits:

The annual base salary compensation for this role, if based in California is: $140,000 - $170,000. Compensation may be different in other locations.  Final compensation also includes bonus, equity and benefits.   Specific offer packages are determined by multiple factors, including candidate skill, experience, expertise, and location. 

✓ Healthcare    ✓ Dental    ✓ Vision    ✓ Learning Allowance

✓ 401K    ✓ Flexible PTO   ✓ Short Term Disability    ✓ Fitness Allowance