Head of Platform Engineering (Automation/Robotics)

Location: Cambridge, England, United Kingdom; the company is based at Melbourn Science Park, approximately 10 miles south of Cambridge.

Company

Cellular Origins is building an automation platform for reliable, repeatable and scalable cell therapy manufacturing.

What you will do

• Set the platform engineering strategy, priorities, roadmap, investment and resource plans.
• Lead team leaders across software, hardware, electronics and firmware, robotics, and systems integration.
• Drive delivery through visible priorities, realistic plans, meaningful measures, early risk management and decisive blocker removal.
• Establish engineering standards for architecture, design review, integration, verification and validation, configuration and change control, reliability, maintainability and lifecycle support.
• Protect platform coherence while balancing customer needs, reuse, modularity, technical debt, product integrity and long-term scalability.
• Partner with Product and Application Development, Customer Delivery and Operations, and represent platform engineering with customers, partners and suppliers.

Requirements

• Proven experience leading a substantial multidisciplinary engineering department through senior managers or discipline leaders, including improving delivery and organisational performance through coaching, direct performance management, organisational design, hiring, skills development and succession planning.
• Experience taking integrated automation, robotics, electromechanical systems or other complex capital equipment from concept through integration, deployment and support.
• Technical credibility across software, embedded systems, electronics, hardware, controls, robotics and systems integration, with the ability to challenge experts and close cross-disciplinary decisions.
• Experience balancing architecture, modularity, reuse, technical debt and lifecycle needs with product, application and customer programme demands.
• Practical command of quality, safety, design assurance, verification and validation, configuration and change control, reliability and continuous improvement.
• Ability to balance scope, cost, resources, timescales and technical risk, and represent engineering credibly with customers, partners and suppliers.
• Ability to align technical and non-technical groups, explain complex choices clearly and build confidence with senior stakeholders.
• Leadership style should be direct, fair, calm under pressure, low ego, proactive, curious and focused on follow-through.

Nice to have

• Experience in a regulated, safety-critical or high-reliability environment.
• Life sciences or GMP experience.

Culture & Benefits

• Entrepreneurial and collaborative culture with modern office, laboratory and engineering spaces.
• Annual bonus and employer pension contribution of 10% of salary.
• 25 days of holiday, private medical insurance for employees and dependants, enhanced family-friendly leave and life insurance worth six times salary.
• Subsidised lunches, electric car leasing scheme, cycle-to-work scheme and season ticket loan.