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About the Role

Substrate is building a network of fully autonomous wet labs for AI biology, integrated with foundation models to become the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery. This role involves developing, validating, and operating assays that will eventually run autonomously on Substrate’s workcells, bridging the gap between scientific protocols and autonomous execution.

Responsibilities

• Develop, validate, and operate assays that will eventually run autonomously on Substrate’s workcells.
• Run protocols by hand, set reproducibility and quality thresholds, and prove each assay out before it moves onto instrumentation.
• Work alongside automation engineers as assays move onto instrumentation.
• Validate equivalence at every step of assay development and automation.
• Execute experiments at the bench.
• Contribute to validation work.
• Grow into protocol authorship over the first year.
• Work directly with automation engineering and software teams.
• Design assays for AI-in-the-loop execution from the first manual run.
• Ensure data output structure, metadata, provenance, and consistency across runs are treated as first-class scientific constraints.
• Set up bench at King’s Cross site and start manual assay development.
• Run first priority assays as the day-1 menu locks.
• Capture data structure and metadata decisions that will translate to workcell design.
• Develop and validate the first protein assays manually.
• Set reproducibility and quality thresholds that will serve as acceptance criteria for moves to instrumented and fully autonomous execution.
• Co-design protocols with software and automation engineering teams.
• Decide which manual judgment calls have to be engineered out before they hit a workcell.
• Contribute to co-design conversations with commercial customers.
• Move validated assays onto workcells, running with instrumentation and human intervention.
• Triage failures in assay execution on workcells.
• Open the assay menu to customers via manual and semi-automated services.
• Run real experiments for real customers.
• Help bring on the next Scientists and Lab Technicians as the vertical grows.

Requirements

• Hands-on experience in protein expression and purification, with at least one biophysical or functional assay run independently.
• Comfortable executing protocols at the bench through manual, semi-automated, and instrumented phases.
• Track record of working alongside non-scientist colleagues (automation, software, computational) on a shared workflow.
• Three or more years of post-PhD or equivalent industry experience in protein science.
• Strong hands-on competence in protein expression and purification, with at least one biophysical or functional assay run independently.
• Ready to grow into protocol authorship and SOP ownership over the first 12 months.
• Direct experience moving protein assays from manual workflows onto lab automation platforms (Nice to have).
• Familiarity with structured experimental data capture, LIMS, ELN, or analogous data infrastructure (Nice to have).
• Experience working with computational or AI/ML colleagues on closed-loop assay programs (Nice to have).
• Background at an AI-native biotech or foundation model company (Nice to have).

Skills

• Protein expression
• Protein purification
• Biophysical assays
• Functional assays
• Assay development
• Assay validation
• Protocol execution
• Data capture
• Metadata
• SOP writing
• Collaboration with automation engineers
• Collaboration with software engineers
• Collaboration with computational colleagues
• LIMS
• ELN

Location

• King's Cross, London

Work Type

• In-person
• Lab-based

Experience Level

• Scientist
• Principal Scientist
• Three or more years of post-PhD or equivalent industry experience

Education Level

• PhD or equivalent industry experience

Salary/Compensations

• Competitive against the London market for senior functional genomics scientists at venture-backed companies, calibrated to seniority and scope.

Benefits

• Options on the standard four-year vest with a one-year cliff.
• 30 days annual leave.
• A learning budget for conferences, courses, books, and time.

About the Company

• Substrate is building a network of fully autonomous wet labs, cloud-based data production facilities for AI biology, integrated with foundation models to become the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery.
• Substrate is spinning out of Automata, the UK lab automation company.
• We are funded by a combination of venture funding and government grants.
• We are not a cloud lab and we are not a CRO.
• We are an autonomous lab platform with closed-loop integration available as one operating mode for foundation model partners.

Equal Opportunity

• Substrate is 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.