Senior Automation Engineer

SENIOR AUTOMATION ENGINEER

About the Role

You will play a key role in shaping and organizing the culture of efficiency within the clinical laboratory and broader operation. You will take point in optimizing the wet, dry, and supporting system integration processes to allow Freenome to prepare for multiple stages of scale-up in an elegant fashion. Your responsibilities will include using lab automation and principled design considerations to come up with effective processes based around molecular biology requirements. You will be directly responsible for the implementation of robust processes on robotic systems, and represent process engineering and automation around the company, including the following groups: supply chain, regulatory, technology transfer, software engineering, wet R&D. You will be a member of the automation team of growing the process engineering and laboratory automation expertise within the company covering the following groups: automation, process engineering, support, and service. Additionally, you will provide  instrument training to clinical lab, support service of instrumentation, and perform just-in-time troubleshooting.

About you

You have a strong work ethic, know the value of your contribution, and want to make an outsized impact by helping the development and mass-marketing of a life-changing test on the operational side. The laboratory touches multiple fields: enzymatics, manufacturing, software, IT. You're well versed in these areas and can participate significantly in all parts of the operation. The challenges of a startup are exciting and you realize the world-changing value of circulating tumor DNA screening. Freenome is changing the world through a product that has the potential to better the standard of care for all current, future, and potential cancer patients. Our ability to build and maintain scalable and efficient workflows in a clinical environment to deliver an always better product will be the main driver for adoption and you will be a key stakeholder in the success.  The automation team is a service provider to the laboratory teams, and the balance between bringing new ideas and processes to the table with managing existing ones and gathering ideas/requirements from the end-users will be a critical part of the success of the automation team.

How you’ll contribute:

• Participate in the design and implementation of efficient workflows, from receiving of labware and reagents to the generation of reports, in support of a rapidly growing clinical organization
• Design and execute optimization experiments for the execution of molecular biology processes on robotic platforms
• Continuously assess the state of the operations and prioritize improvements based on expected improvements
• Provide systematic approaches to implement automation solutions to ensure process scalability, sustainability and reliability
• Integrate or build innovative laboratory automation tools, instruments, and technologies
• Design the development of new, automated, and efficient lab processes, with the end goal of processing the world’s volume of genetics tests hands-free
• Bring a can-do attitude to solve new and challenging problems in a high pace environment
• Be a key member of a highly experienced world-class automation team

What you’ll bring:

• 6+ years developing and implementing high-efficiency automated workflows 
• Experience developing lab automation tools for NGS assay of DNA and RNA, including extraction, library preparation, target capture, etc.
• Familiarity with proteomic and immunoassay workflows.
• Proven track record developing robust and efficient automated workflows and successful transfer of supportable technologies and workflows into a high-throughput operation
• Substantial Experience scripting methods on OEM robotic systems with a strong preference for Hamilton and Agilent Bravo Liquid Handlers, including liquid class development and process optimization
• Experience in automation-LIMS integration, designing and executing instrument testing/validation plan
• Functional knowledge in experimental design, bench execution, process optimization, data analysis, and system integration 
• Proven organizational sense to develop an efficient and integrated service, automation and process engineering groups
• Experience working with a broad set of instruments
• Experience with off the shelf scheduling software (Momentum, GreenButtonGo, Overlord, VWorks)
• Solid understanding of lab automation industry and tools available
• Experience working in a regulated environment (CLIA / CAP / NYS / FDA / GCLP)
• Experience in reagent manufacturing, ideally in a regulated environment (cGMP)

Freenome has adopted a COVID-19 vaccination policy to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees. As a condition of employment, our employees working on-site are required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, unless a reasonable accommodation is approved or as otherwise required by law.

About Freenome

Freenome is on a mission to empower everyone with the tools they need to detect, treat, and ultimately prevent cancer.

We have pioneered the most comprehensive multiomics platform for early cancer detection through a routine blood draw.  By combining deep expertise in molecular biology with advanced computational biology and machine learning techniques to recognize disease-associated patterns among billions of circulating, cell-free biomarkers, we are developing simple and accurate blood tests for early cancer detection and integrating the actionable insights into health systems to operationalize a machine learning feedback loop between care and science. 

Our recent $270 Million Series C brings our financing to over $500 million from investors, including;  Bain Capital, Perceptive Advisors, RA Capital, Polaris Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., GV (formerly Google Ventures), Roche Venture Fund, Kaiser Permanente Ventures, American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Ventures, Data Collective Venture Capital, Novartis and Verily Life Sciences. 

Our Science

Freenome is building technology to advance the understanding of cancer through multiple analytes derived from blood. These signals include cell-free DNA, methylation of cell-free DNA, cell-free RNA, circulating proteins, and immune profiling derived from thousands of prospective samples. By developing novel statistical learning methods and applying them to integrate various -omics datasets, Freenome is a leader in modeling specific biological mechanisms to capture disease-dependent signatures, including gene expression, immune response, tumor burden, the tissue of origin, and 3D chromatin structure. 

By building comprehensive discovery datasets and modeling critical biological systems, Freenome is learning what biological changes are present within the blood between a variety of different disease states, including cancer, autoimmune disorders, infections, drug response, and aging. The synthesis of Freenome’s datasets, cross-functional technical expertise, and audacious mission to discover biological truth, we seek to improve the lives of millions through early detection and early treatment of disease.  

Our Culture

Freenomers are technical, creative, visionary, grounded, empathetic, and passionate. We build teams around divergent expertise, allowing us to solve problems and ascertain opportunities in unique ways. Freenomers are some of the most talented experts in their fields, joining together to advance healthcare, one breakthrough at a time. 

We value empathy, integrity, and trust in one another, and we respect the diverse perspectives of our colleagues and those we serve.  We assume positive intent and give each other the benefit of the doubt with the firm belief that we are a team working toward the same objectives.  We believe in empowering and supporting each other in a collaborative and dynamic environment. 

What does a successful person look like at Freenome?

Those who thrive at Freenome prioritize, manage, and execute their own goals with ownership and alignment with those of the company. They embrace our values of empathy, integrity, striving for greatness, servant leadership, trust, and holding themselves and their team accountable to these values. They crave collaboration with brilliant minds from disparate fields of study and believe that hiring and mentorship are fundamental to our success. Above all, they welcome and provide constructive feedback and criticism, trusting in others’ good intentions, and being secure in knowing that embracing mistakes is the best way to learn and grow. For those who pursue challenges, understudied problems, and want the opportunity to see their work impact the lives of millions of people affected by cancer every year, there’s no better place to be than Freenome.

Freenome is proud to be an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity. Freenome does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, non-disqualifying physical or mental disability, national origin, veteran status, or any other basis covered by appropriate law.