Lab Automation Lead

About us, and our mission

At Orakl Oncology, we are accelerating the development of oncology treatments. Today, fewer than 5% of new cancer drugs succeed in clinical trials. Clearly, new methods are needed. We combine cutting-edge biology and AI to build the next generation of insight platforms with a large cohort of patient-derived tumor avatars. These avatars fuel our predictive engine, helping to anticipate clinical outcomes, validate therapies and uncover new drug candidates. By generating multimodal, real-world data, we aim to make drug development smarter, faster and more personalized. We collaborate with leading hospitals, research institutes and pharmaceutical companies. Backed by leading investors, Orakl is a fast-growing, mission-driven startup at the intersection of biology, automation and AI.

Position overview

Orakl runs a high-throughput 3D cell‑culture platform to culture patient-derived organoids (PDOs). These patient-derived specimens reveal critical information into the patient disease, but require heavy maintenance work. Automating these workflows will be critical to improve the reliability and traceability of experimental work. We are hiring our first automation lead to build the Automation function from scratch. This is a high ownership and high autonomy job. You will map our processes, decide what to automate and what to leave alone, specify and source the equipment, negotiate with vendors and integrators, commission the machines, run them with the lab team, and hire the people the function needs. As the ideal candidate, you have already put automated lines or special machines into service, and you know what typically breaks between commissioning and the first experimental runs. While previous experience in biology is a plus, it is not a strict requirement: you will be taught all you need to know. However, you do need a proven experience in working deeply embedded in interdisciplinary teams.

Key responsibilities

• Map cell culture workflows end to end and identify key process automation and optimisation opportunities.

• Own the automation roadmap. Present and lead the implementation of the major decisions to Orakl’s leadership.

• In line with the automation strategy you will have identified, evaluate vendors and integrators. Write user requirement specifications, acceptance criteria and interface requirements for each project.

• Negotiate price, scope, delivery, acceptance, support and consumables terms autonomously within agreed thresholds.

• Lead design reviews and factory and site acceptance tests.

• Translate our proprietary cell culture protocols into automated machine execution with our team of cell biologists and scientists.

• Track machine availability, hands-on time per line, interventions, failures and recovery time. Use the data to decide the next step.

• Coordinate with Orakl’s management to anticipate future automation needs on the platform and adjust the roadmap accordingly.

• Hire and develop the automation technicians and engineers the roadmap needs.

• Set the standards for the automated platform: documentation, quality control, safety, qualification, change control, vendor management.

In this role you will collaborate closely with our cell culture, cell biology and data science teams. You will be at the heart of Orakl Oncology’s capabilities roadmap and help generate unprecedented amounts of biological data to power scientific discovery in cancer.

Key qualifications

Must-have

• Engineering degree (generalist, robotics, industrial, mechanical or process engineering) or equivalent, and at least eight years of experience.

• Exceptional process thinking skills: you map flows, time operations, find bottlenecks and question the processes.

• Experience in supplier negotiation and budget ownership on your own projects.

• Experience in PLC and robot programming concepts, scheduling software, instrument interfaces, basic scripting.

• You enjoy and are comfortable spending time on the floor with operators. You have experience in communicating and operating with engineers, technicians and workers at the heart of production processes.

• Autonomy: you tell your manager what you decided and why, not what you need decided.

• Fluency in English is required.

Nice-to-have

• You have put automated lines, cells or special machines into service end to end: requirements, vendor selection, negotiation, integration, factory and site acceptance, ramp-up, budget. This doesn’t have to be in a lab environment : plant, food and fermentation, pharma or cosmetics are other examples of relevant experience.

• Automation in life-science or regulated environments: cell culture, biotech, food and fermentation, pharma, cleanroom or BSL-2 work.

• A working understanding of cell culture and what it demands: sterility, contamination risk, variability between samples, and steps governed by the biological pace.

• Liquid handling, plate-based workflows, incubators and imagers; laboratory scheduling software.

• Experience hiring and leading an automation team.

What we offer

• You will be Orakl's first automation hire. You will have a unique degree of ownership and scope with a strong mandate to deliver.

• Short decision lines and fast execution.

• An interdisciplinary environment with a results-driven culture.

Recruitment process

1. Introductory call with Talent / People — 20 minutes

2. Interview with the Lab Director, hiring manager — 45 minutes, including a 15-minute live mini-case on a small lab process

3. Technical deep dive with the CTO and the Lab Director

4. Case study on a real part of our lab: a take-home capped at four hours, then a half day on site with presentation, challenge round, lab walk.

5. Cross-functional interviews with the technicians who run the culture, Platform Operations, the Senior Laboratory Engineers and the Data team — 60 minutes

6. Reference calls: a former manager, a vendor or integrator you negotiated with, and an operator who ran a line you delivered

7. Founder conversation — 45 minutes