Core Technologies Lead

A Bit

About Us:

We are Arcadia Science, an evolutionary biology company founded and led by scientists. Our mission is to turn natural innovations into real-world solutions by developing systematic and quantitative approaches to leveraging biology for therapeutics R&D. We share our research as openly as possible to accelerate discovery and make our work broadly useful.

We are seeking a Core Technologies Lead who can direct a team of experimental specialists that provide critical research support across science teams. Our current core technologies include advanced microscopy, biochemistry, molecular biology/genetic engineering, cell biology, and assay development. We plan to apply high throughput and automated approaches to workflows within each area.

The Core Tech Lead balances scientific problem solving with operational strategy. Their project management approach is flexible in accounting for varied project stakeholders and timelines and robust to the scientific demands of fundamental research. An ideal candidate is an experienced wet lab scientist and strategic experimental problem solver across a wide range of technical areas. In collaboration with our science teams, they should be able to quickly identify technical bottlenecks in our research and address these by developing and implementing solutions with the Core Technologies team.

They should be excited to scale recurring challenges through automation or more efficient service workflows. Enthusiasm for developing robust and reproducible data and documentation practices that accelerate Arcadia’s open science work is a must.

The Core Technologies Lead will have a unique opportunity to truly shape the strategy and future directions of Core Technologies  expect the Core Technologies Lead to quickly acclimate to the ongoing work of this high agency team and identify strategies for scaling and expanding their capabilities. This will include working alongside leadership to develop strategic goals for Core Technologies, identifying critical hiring needs, and leading the recruitment and management of new team members.

Candidates must be well-versed in experimental design across existing and internally developed core technologies such that they can also do independent, hands‑on experimentation themselves.

We are scaling our research operations refore, we are seeking someone with biotech industry experience to nimbly address experimental needs, iterate on strategies, and quickly grow a team within a fast‑paced, start‑up environment. We expect the Lead to interface seamlessly with our software engineers and bioinformaticians, so they should have a solid grasp of best data and computational practices. They must also work smoothly with our Operations team to co‑develop research infrastructure as we expand various efforts across the organization.

• Lead and scale our Core Technologies team, currently consisting of 8 scientists with specializations across key technology areas
• Creating processes to identify and support core experimental needs across the organization
• Collaborating with scientists to establish, validate, and potentially automate central, recurring workflows
• Providing real‑time feedback to internal and external collaborators on technology development progress and bottlenecks
• Seeking out and managing CRO support when needed
• Setting strategy for Core Technologies
• Working closely with Lab Operations to acquire and maintain equipment and reagents
• Ensuring methodology and results for Core Technologies work are clearly documented, reproducible, and quickly published

• Ph.D. in the life sciences
• 10+ years experience in direct wet‑lab research experience (including Ph.D.)
• 2+ years experience in scaling a biotech start‑up
• 2+ years experience in industry team management (>3 direct reports)
• Demonstrable expertise in at least three of these wet lab technologies: microscopy, biochemistry, molecular biology/genetic engineering, cell biology, assay development
• Some basic experience with data and computation best practices
• Direct experience with electronic lab notebook and data infrastructure systems
• Clear and succinct verbal and written communicator

• Direct experience implementing high throughput/automation strategies to common experimental workflows
• Ability to do some light programming, especially for automation workflows
• Expertise in >3 core wet lab technologies (listed above)
• Experience teaching or training others

$165,000 - $200,000 a year

Arcadia is a fully on‑site team. The position will require the individual to