Senior Automation Engineer–Analytical Sciences Physicochemical Development

Do you have a passion for Science? Would you like to apply your expertise to impact a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life changing medicines? Then AstraZeneca might be the one for you!

At AstraZeneca, we put patients first and strive to meet their unmet needs worldwide. Working here means being entrepreneurial, thinking big and working together to make the impossible a reality. If you are swift to action, confident to lead, willing to collaborate, and curious about what science can do, then you’re our kind of person.

About AstraZeneca in Gaithersburg, MD:

Our Gaithersburg, Maryland facility creates life-changing medicines for people around the world. This campus employs more than 3,500 experts in our field and is only a short drive from Washington, DC. This modern and vibrant scientific campus is the home of R&D and Oncology in the US. Here, we play host to some of the most cutting-edge technology and lab spaces, all designed to inspire collaboration and cross-functional science. We believe employees benefit from being challenged and inspired at work. We are dedicated to creating a culture of inclusion and collaboration.

The Gaithersburg site offers a variety of amenities to help boost productivity and help keep our employees happy and healthy. This includes a fitness center, employee healthcare clinic, electric vehicle charging stations, dry cleaning, full-service cafeteria, and copy center. This is where you’ll find newly designed, activity-based work spaces to suit a variety of working styles while increasing collaboration between teams.

Summary of the group:

The Physicochemical Development (PCD) group is accountable for the advancement of AstraZeneca’s biologics portfolio using industry-leading analytical technologies. The work performed in PCD group includes: 1) mature platform methodologies and analytical strategies to achieve analytical deliverables with consistency and efficiency; 2) advanced analytical capabilities to support diversified modalities innovation with a clear sense of purpose; 3) design, implement, and integrate robotics and automation in biologics laboratories supporting the biopharmaceutical development organization.

Main Duties & Responsibilities:

The Senior Automation Engineer position will support the R&D organization and will focus on the design, construction, and data management of robotics and high-throughput systems that will drive efficiency, inform decisions and enable discovery. The candidate must have automation experience, great organizational skills, related lab/instrument experience, excellent oral communication skills, good time management and outstanding multi-tasking abilities.

• Consistently build solutions that enable the integration of high-throughput, traditional bench-scale or manufacturing systems
• Lead scientific team efforts to establish world-class automation capabilities and co-develop an automation vision for the department
• Establishes working relationships and credibility outside the company
• Anticipates and resolves priority conflicts.
• Trains, mentors or supervises lower-level engineers or scientists.

Education & Experience Requirements:

BS, MS, or PhD in a relevant robotics and automation subject area (robotics, electronic engineering, mechanical engineering, computer engineering, etc.) accompanied by relevant work experience with bench science laboratory work.

BS with 9+ years, MS with 7+ years or PhD with 1+ years of relevant experience

Required Skills:

• Must have experience and skills in creating, modifying and troubleshooting laboratory robotics/automation scripts for 1 or more common liquid handling robotic automation platforms such as Hamilton/Venus (preferred) or Tecan/EVOware
• Application Specialty expertise of multiple laboratory automation instrument (TECAN, Hamilton, PerkinElmer, etc.) or high throughput analytics (plate readers, LabChip GX, Trinean, etc.) and demonstrated competency in enabling laboratory automation tools (Capper/decappers, plate seal/peel, tube labelers, automated barcode readers) is essential.
• Excellent time management, writing, presentation, and organizational skills, and the ability to work independently in a fast-paced team-centered environment
• Demonstrated ability to Reskills as necessary to for evolving role
• Leads training and mentors others in areas of Application Specialty expertise

Desired Skills:

• Hands-on experience automating and integrating R&D Bench science
• Demonstrated capabilities with a coding language or database management to maintain or create new tools is a plus
• Experience with establishing impactful collaborations in developing high throughput biologics analytical methods and automation solutions
• Demonstrated leadership promoting automation culture and technology innovation through, team participation, internal consulting and mentoring
• Certification training with 1 or more automation platforms (EVOware, Venus, Instinct, etc), 1 or more coding languages or computer aided design platforms a plus

Why AstraZeneca?

At AstraZeneca when we see an opportunity for change, we seize it and make it happen, because any opportunity no matter how small, can be the start of something big. Delivering life-changing medicines is about being entrepreneurial - finding those moments and recognising their potential. Join us on our journey of building a new kind of organisation to reset expectations of what a bio-pharmaceutical company can be. This means we’re opening new ways to work, pioneering cutting edge methods and bringing unexpected teams together. Interested? Come and join our journey.

So, what’s next!

Are you ready to bring new ideas and fresh thinking to the table? Brilliant! We have one seat available and we hope it’s yours.

Where can I find out more?

Check out our landing page for more information on our BPD group https://careers.astrazeneca.com/bpd

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