Executive Director, Automation Operations (Biotech)

Location: Millbrae, California, with responsibility across the Millbrae headquarters and the New York City laboratory; periodic travel to New York City is required.

Expected salary: $263,000–$318,150 annually, depending on skills, competency, and market demand.

Company

hirify.global Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company developing treatments for life-threatening diseases through integrated chemistry, engineering, computation, biology, and molecular-resolution imaging technology.

What you will do

• Lead and grow the Platform Integration organization across Lab Automation, Service, and Compound Management, including managers and technical leads.
• Define and execute a multi-year platform roadmap aligned with scientific strategy, balancing operational demands and future capability building.
• Translate research and experimental needs into requirements for hardware, software, automation, and systems engineering teams, while communicating engineering constraints to scientists.
• Oversee the design, integration, qualification, deployment, reliability, maintenance, and lifecycle management of liquid handlers, robotics, imaging systems, scheduling software, and laboratory data systems.
• Transition validated assays from Research into automated production services with phased rollout plans, service-level agreements, data traceability, equivalent assay performance, and guaranteed turnaround.
• Set operational standards and metrics, manage vendors and budgets, plan capacity and resources, evaluate emerging technologies, and communicate strategy, risks, and performance to scientific and executive leadership.

Requirements

• Postgraduate degree with 15 years of experience, or Bachelor’s degree with 18 years of experience, in laboratory automation, scientific instrumentation, or platform engineering in the life sciences.
• 5+ years leading multidisciplinary technical teams and managing managers, including director-level leaders.
• Demonstrated experience building laboratory platforms at biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or life-science companies from initial concept through scaled production operation.
• Deep working knowledge of experimental science and engineering, with the ability to translate scientific needs into engineering requirements and represent engineering constraints to scientists.
• Experience owning laboratory operations at scale, including system reliability, service and maintenance programs, and operational metrics.
• Experience transitioning manual, scientist-run workflows into automated production services, including phased rollout, SLA definition, and stakeholder management across Research and Engineering.
• Experience with integrated laboratory automation systems, including liquid handlers, robotic arms, plate readers, automated imaging systems, and scheduling or orchestration software.
• Familiarity with compound registration, automated storage and retrieval, plate production, sample tracking, inventory systems, and quality control across small molecules, biologics, peptides, and nucleic acids.
• Strong strategic planning, prioritization, budget management, capital equipment planning, vendor management, and written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to support operations across multiple sites, including periodic travel to the New York City laboratory.

Nice to have

• Experience in high-throughput drug discovery, screening operations, and hit-to-lead workflows.
• Familiarity with laboratory informatics, including LIMS, ELN, compound registration databases, scheduling software, inventory systems, and instrument-data pipelines.
• Experience scaling platform organizations during rapid company growth.
• Experience with advanced or automated microscopy, quantitative imaging, or optical instrumentation.
• Experience supporting laboratories operating extended hours or continuously.

Culture & Benefits

• Employee compensation includes bonus and equity in addition to salary.
• 401(k) plan with company matching, medical insurance with 95% of premiums covered, and dental and vision insurance with 100% of premiums covered.
• Mental health and wellness benefits, enhanced parental leave, life and AD&D insurance, and optional supplemental coverage.
• Weeklong summer and winter holiday shutdowns, generous paid time off, and holiday policies.
• Daily subsidized lunch when working on-site.
• Culture emphasizing safety, scientific rigor, accountability, documentation, ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement.