Experimental Systems Engineer, Analytical Chemistry
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Oct 31, 2026. First seen by Alion on Jul 6, 2026. Dayhoff Labs scores B on the Alion truth index.
About us
We're reverse-engineering the origin of life - one of the great unsolved problems in science, and one we think AI finally makes tractable. Understanding this transition, from geochemistry to biochemistry, is what will let us orchestrate molecular networks and build systems that are more capable, adaptive, and efficient.
If we succeed, the applications are vast: catalysis, green synthesis, ab initio synthetic biology, programmable matter. Understanding and harnessing these processes could let ten billion of us thrive on this planet - and let life keep evolving beyond it.
We're a small, diverse team of AI engineers, computational scientists, and bench scientists. We hold ourselves to the rigor of a research institute, but we ship like an engineering firm. Global team, HQs in Cambridge, MA and London, UK.
The role
You'll build new ways of watching chemistry happen - liquid-phase reaction networks, enzymatic and not, evolving in real time. This role suits people who build things and figure things out: prototype a measurement setup, learn fast whether it tells you anything trustworthy, keep it or bin it.
What you'll do
Design and build prototype systems for monitoring aqueous chemical reaction networks in real time
Work with small CSTRs, flow reactors, microfluidic devices, pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, and autosamplers
Evaluate analytical technologies including Raman, UV-Vis, fluorescence, IR, NMR, LC-MS, HPLC, electrochemical sensing, and low-cost process probes
Build Python-based tools for data acquisition, instrument control, signal processing, and visualisation
Combine continuous measurements with sampled analytical data to reconstruct the time evolution of chemical mixtures
Work closely with chemists, enzymologists, computational scientists, and ML engineers to turn messy signals into useful data
Essential experience
You'll have some but not necessarily all of the following:
Building experimental hardware or analytical setups with your own hands
Comfort with liquid handling systems: pumps, valves, tubing, flow cells, leaks, bubbles, fouling, and drift
At least some analytical chemistry methods (spectroscopy, chromatography, mass spectrometry, NMR, or electrochemical sensing)
Practical Python for data acquisition, analysis, plotting, and automation
Willingness to move between the wet lab, instrument manuals, notebooks, code, and physical prototyping
Good judgement about when a measurement is meaningful, when it is misleading, and when the setup needs rebuilding
Highly preferred
Any of Raman, FTIR, UV-Vis, fluorescence, online NMR, LC-MS, HPLC, or MS workflows
Lab automation: Arduino, Raspberry Pi, LabJack, NI DAQ, serial instrument control, autosamplers, or custom data logging
Building fast prototypes in a startup, academic lab, instrument company, or hardware-heavy research environment
Logistics
Compensation is highly competitive. We're also able to sponsor visas for the right candidate.