Lab Operations Manager
Substrate Bio
Lab Operations Manager
Substrate Bio
Autonomous AI-driven wet labs for biological experimentation
LOCATION: London · PATTERN: On site, five days a week
We’re a stealth startup in AI and bio, building infrastructure for data generation. The team is small and elite, the problems are hard, and the foundations are being laid right now. You’d help write them from the first line, with real ownership and a direct line to the founders.
Someone has to make sure that our lab is ready every morning: stock on the shelf, deliveries booked in and in the right freezer, equipment serviced, orders placed early enough to matter.
That is this role. Most people who run lab operations inherit a system that somebody else designed. You will set one up in a lab that is still being built, and it will still be running when the company is several times its current size.
AI for biology has a data problem. The data that matters most doesn’t exist yet, so we’re building the infrastructure to produce it, with quality and traceability built in from day one.
We’re in stealth and heads-down on execution. We’ll share more about what we’re building once you’ve spoken with the team.
You will run the day-to-day operations of our lab in London. You will be the person the scientists come to when something is missing, broken, late or lost, and the person who makes sure that happens as rarely as possible.
The day-one work is what you would expect. Consumables and stock: knowing what is on the shelf, what is running low, and what needs ordering before anyone notices it is short. Goods in and cold chain: receiving deliveries, booking them in, getting temperature-sensitive material into the right storage quickly, and recording where it went. Equipment: service schedules, calibration records, routine maintenance, and being the contact for engineers when something needs fixing. Suppliers and purchasing: raising orders, chasing them, managing lead times, and running the quote process when we buy something new. And the lab floor itself: waste streams, housekeeping standards, and safety records kept current alongside our health and safety partner.
Two parts of the role go beyond a standard lab operations job, and they are why it matters so much here.
The first is provenance. we sells the quality and the provenance of its data, which means every experiment carries a record of the decisions behind it, down to the lot of the consumable used and the conditions material was held in. Stock control and goods in are part of that scientific record rather than a back-office task. If a lot number is not captured, the data point is worth less. That part of the record runs through you.
The second is that the systems are not written yet. Inventory, goods in, asset registers, ordering, supplier management: none of it exists in a form that will survive the next year. You are not expected to build the software and you are not expected to run the science. We are not looking for a developer or a bench scientist. You are expected to help define what everything else in the lab needs to capture, and to work closely with the science, software and operations teams so that it does get captured, at the point the work happens rather than reconstructed afterwards. Anyone who wants to run an established system will find this uncomfortable. Anyone who wants to shape one will find there is a lot of room.
The role will not stay where it starts. The lab in front of you is the first of several. Automation arrives on top of the current setup, functional genomics builds out alongside protein characterisation on the same London site, and a larger production lab follows after that. Each of those changes what lab operations means here, and what you set up for the first one is what the next ones are built on.
◆ Learn the lab and the science that runs in it. Sit with the protein team, understand the assay cascade and what it consumes.
◆ Take ownership of goods in. Every delivery received, booked in, stored correctly and recorded.
◆ Build the first accurate picture of what we hold: a stock and equipment baseline that did not exist before you arrived.
◆ Put a working inventory and reorder system in place, with minimum levels set from real consumption rather than guesses.
MEMBER OF OPERATIONS STAFF, LAB OPERATIONS
◆ Own the purchasing loop end to end: quotes, orders, chasing, receipting, and lead times tracked against when the science needs the item.
◆ Get equipment records current, with service schedules and calibration dates in one place anyone can check.
◆ Run the lab as a routine that does not depend on being asked. Stock replenished, deliveries handled, equipment serviced, waste moving.
◆ Work with the operations and software teams so consumable, lot and storage information is captured at the point of use and feeds our provenance record. ◆ Support what has to change as the site expands, with automation and a second science vertical arriving, and flag what should be hired or automated first.
You have run the physical side of an operation where being out of stock stops the work. That might be a biotech or pharma lab, a university or institute lab, or a warehouse, cold chain or manufacturing operation with no lab in sight. What matters is that you have handled real volume, real deliveries and real inventory, and that you know the difference between a system that works on paper and one that works at eight on a Monday morning.
You are organised in a way other people can see. You notice the thing that is about to run out. You chase a supplier without being told twice. You are comfortable being the person who says the delivery is wrong.
You do not need a biology background and we will not test you on one. The scientists know the science. We need someone who can keep the operation underneath it working.
We do not hire people into boxes. This role will stretch past its description, sometimes into the science, sometimes into software, sometimes into the building itself. Early hires here are expected to pick up what is in front of them.
◆ Two or more years running lab, stores, warehouse or comparable physical operations, hands-on and accountable for the result.
◆ Practical stock control: goods in, inventory records, reorder points, stock counts that reconcile.
◆ Experience buying from suppliers: raising orders, comparing quotes, managing lead times.
◆ Careful record-keeping, and the discipline to keep it accurate on a busy day.
◆ Lab environment experience: cold storage, hazardous waste, containment, controlled materials.
MEMBER OF OPERATIONS STAFF, LAB OPERATIONS
◆ Working with inventory or ERP software, or the appetite to help choose one and set it up from scratch.
◆ Health and safety training such as IOSH.
◆ Experience of a company that grew quickly around you.
Most lab operations roles are about keeping an established lab running to an established standard. This one is not, in two ways.
The lab is still being built, and it will keep changing under you. You will arrive while instruments are being installed and the first experiments are starting. Automation follows, a second science vertical builds out alongside the first on the same site, and a larger production lab comes after that. The systems you set up in your first three months are the ones the company will run on for years.
And the operational record is part of the product. The lot numbers, storage conditions and handling steps you capture end up inside what our customers are paying for, which is not usually true of stock control.
Some people find that energising; some find it outside their lane. Worth knowing in advance which one you are.
This role is on site five days a week at our London Lab. The lab is a physical place and the work is in it.
We work in the open. Decisions are written down, work happens in Slack rather than scattered across tools, and the week is bookended by a Monday kick-off and a Thursday wrap that the whole company attends. There is a quarterly offsite. Each person owns their area and makes the call inside it, and we will expect that of you early rather than late.
UK benefits are 30 days of annual leave plus public holidays, a pension with a 10% employer contribution, and top-tier Bupa private health cover. More is added as the team grows.
You will report to a member of our scientific staff working on protein characterisation, who is one of the lab’s heaviest users and knows in detail what the science needs from it. Day to day you will work alongside the rest of the protein science team, with the engineers building the software and automation the lab runs on, and with our operations team on facilities, health and safety, and purchasing.
Our process has four stages.
A short screening call about the role and the practicalities. A conversation about how you work, run from the same template for every candidate, before anything technical. A practical exercise drawn from a real problem in our lab, followed by a discussion of what you did and why. Then references, aimed at whatever we still want to understand.
We are an equal opportunity employer. We make hiring decisions on merit, scope-fit, and the strength of the working relationship we expect to build with each hire. Applications welcome from candidates of any background.
Autonomous AI-driven wet labs for biological experimentation
Substrate Bio operates AI-native data-production infrastructure for biology, connecting computational models with real-world experimentation. The company runs a network of autonomous, robotics-powered wet labs, starting in London with a second planned for San Francisco, running standardized experiments with full provenance, metadata, and quality control. Researchers access the labs via API, submitting experiment parameters and receiving structured data and metadata, while foundation models help design assay selections, cell systems, and gene panels. What sets Substrate Bio apart is its closed feedback loop, where better data improves its models and better models design better experiments. The goal is to make biological experimentation as programmable and scalable as computation itself.
Explore more opportunities at Substrate Bio