Senior Lab Automation Engineer in London

About Relation

Relation is a sector defining Tech Bio company developing transformational medicines, with technology at our core.

Our ambition is to understand human biology in unprecedented ways, discovering therapies to treat some of life’s most devastating diseases.

We leverage single-cell multi-omics from patient tissue, functional assays, and machine learning to drive disease understanding, from cause to cure.

We are scaling rapidly and building a team of exceptional individuals to push the boundaries of drug discovery.

You will work in highly interdisciplinary teams where biology, computation, and engineering come together to solve complex problems that have not been solved before.

Our state‑of‑the‑art wet and dry labs in the heart of London are designed to accelerate this integration and translate insight into impact.

By joining Relation, you will help define how medicines are discovered and deliver meaningful impact for patients.

The opportunity

We are offering an outstanding opportunity for a Lab Automation Engineer to put automation at the heart of how we do science.

We are growing our automated experimental capabilities to generate proprietary, large‑scale multimodal datasets that power our machine learning models of cellular behaviour.

You will be joining as we grow our lab automation capabilities over a number of robotic workcells in central London.

Working closely with external vendors, you will be a central driver in building and deploying new automation platforms and transitioning them into productive data generators.

Collaborating deeply with both scientific and software teams, you will be a key integrator between our Discovery and Technology organisations.

• Day to day you will
• Partner with scientific teams to translate assays into robust, high‑throughput, automated workflows.
• Generate and maintain code for instrument control, workflow parameterisation, and data and metadata handoffs.
• Work with orchestration and scheduling software layers to define, configure and test end‑to‑end automated workflows, including device integrations and automated data steps.
• Generate multi‑device automation protocols and configure tip‑based liquid handlers.
• Support development of automated QC, controls and error‑handling approaches that protect assay windows and reproducibility.
• Troubleshoot automation hardware and software issues.
• Develop novel and creative approaches to automation challenges.
• Professionally, you will have
• A degree in engineering, automation, life sciences, computer science or a related discipline, or equivalent practical experience; a strong track record of hands‑on laboratory automation in a biotech, pharma or CRO setting.
• Substantial practical experience working with robotically integrated automation systems, including building and integrating workflows across multiple instruments, plus experience with tip‑based liquid handlers.
• Comfortable with generating and maintaining code in support of instrument control and data capture.
• Experience in collaborating with scientific teams for translating assays onto automation platforms.
• Experience with scheduling and orchestration software for automated workflows plus familiarity of integrating these with broader informatics systems.
• Excellent communication and cross‑functional collaboration skills, and a genuinely hands‑on mindset.
• Experience in automated cell biology; high‑content imaging and cell painting would be a bonus.

Personally, you

• Are comfortable working in a matrixed environment, balancing multiple stakeholders and contributing effectively across teams.
• Take ownership of your work, proactively seek opportunities to contribute, and enable others to do their best work.
• Communicate openly and directly, give and receive feedback constructively, and handle challenging conversations with respect.
• Actively seek out diverse perspectives, build strong working relationships, and contribute to shared goals across teams.
• Embrace challenges with openness and resilience, set high standards for yourself, and strive to deliver meaningful outcomes.
• Working Style & Culture at Relation

At Relation, we operate in a matrixed, interdisciplinary environment where impact is driven through collaboration across scientific, technical, and operational domains.

We collaborate, and you will partner with colleagues across multiple teams and projects, contributing your expertise while aligning to shared company priorities.

Equal opportunities

Relation is a committed equal opportunities employer and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, sexual orientation, marital or civil partnership status, gender reassignment, race, colour, nationality, ethnic or national origin, religion or belief, disability, or age.

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