Systems Diagnostics Scientist

Emerald Cloud Lab, South San Francisco, CA

By Scientists, For Scientists

http://www.emeraldcloudlab.com

About Emerald

At Emerald, we are building the software and hardware infrastructure to accelerate the pace of life sciences research, with the intention of laying the foundations for a period of flourishing innovation in biotechnology and medicine in the coming decades. It is our aim to make it as achievable for a small team of scientists to pursue an ambitious therapeutic R&D initiative as it has become for a small team of programmers to develop and deploy a web-based software product.

The Emerald Cloud Laboratory (ECL) is a web-based life sciences lab, enabling scientists to move out of the lab, and to instead conduct research remotely from a computer. It empowers scientists to specify experiments with the precision and reproducibility of code, and to abstract away the physical execution of those experiments to Emerald’s robotically-driven facility in South San Francisco. Through the ECL, the resulting experimental data is accessible in perpetuity, detailed metadata is linked and explorable, and investigators are equipped with a suite of computational tools to drive of the algorithmic components of data analysis, freeing them to focus on the insights that are uniquely derived by scientists.

Systems Diagnostics at Emerald

Our Systems Diagnostics Scientists are responsible for leveraging a deep understanding of our many different instruments and experiments, and the associated software, to quickly diagnose and fix problems that arise, and to minimize instrument downtime for our customers.

The experiments Emerald offers span many disciplines, including organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, physical chemistry, molecular biology and cell biology. Emerald currently offers over 40 experiments, and we are marching toward full coverage of all 100+ in vitro life sciences experiments. Each experiment is fully computationally enclosed and automated, and you will gain expertise in both this expansive diversity of experiments and in the cutting-edge hardware and software on which they run.

Over time, this role also includes the charge to surface all the underlying conceptual flowcharts you develop to diagnose and fix instrument and software problems throughout the lab, and to propagate these as explicit institutional knowledge through conscientious documentation and new hire training, and the design of new controls to include on our daily runs to eliminate common problems.

About You

You might be a great fit for Systems Diagnostics at Emerald if ...

You have 5+ years of experience working hands-on in a life sciences laboratory.
You have worked extensively in the course of research to troubleshoot both experiments and complex instrumentation.
You have experience conducting a wide variety of different experiment types, and are excited to quickly develop expertise in a very diverse array of new methods and instrumentation.
You are the person everyone comes to in your lab to solve the most recalcitrant instrument and software problems.
You have very mature instincts for experimental and controls design.
Your are very comfortable digging into code or taking apart the machine to diagnose the problem. (Prior programming experience is a bonus, but is not strictly required).
You have the both diplomacy and forcefulness necessary to work well with outside instrument vendors.
You are excited to lead the development of a culture in systems diagnostics that is based on strong inference.

You might be a great fit for Emerald's culture if ...

You’ve got grit. Setbacks just sweeten the eventual wins.
When a hard problem confronts you, you are too busy conceiving of potential solutions to get hung up on the question of whether it can be solved or not.
You are impressively empathetic.
You are intellectually fearless. Stretching yourself out of your comfort zone across multiple disciplines is more the rule than the exception at Emerald.
You are not afraid to diverge from precedent when first-principles thinking illuminates another path.

Next Steps

If you would like to apply or learn more, we’d love to hear from you! Please follow the "Apply" link below, and include your resume and a remark or two about where you are coming from and why you are interested in Emerald and this role. We will contact you if we think there could be a match.

About Emerald Cloud Lab

Emerald Cloud Laboratory (ECL) comes from Emerald Therapeutics, our venture-backed biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, California. Emerald was founded by two life-long friends (both Ph.D. scientists) and is staffed by top scientists and engineers from around the world. The ECL was originally developed as an internal product built to streamline research efforts, ensure reproducibility, and provide greater leverage for Emerald's scientists. Now, we are bringing the ECL to the world to provide leaner, more reproducible scientific research to everyone.