Executive Director, Automation Operations

Position

As Executive Director of Automation Operations, you will lead the organization that builds, operates, and advances Eikon’s integrated discovery platform. You will have responsibility for three teams: Automation Engineering, which develops and deploys the robotic systems that execute Eikon’s high-throughput workflows; Service, which keeps the automated systems running through monitoring, maintenance, and rapid response; and Compound Management, which stewards Eikon’s compound collection and reliably delivers compounds and other research materials to screening and follow-up workflows.

You will sit at the interface between Research and Engineering. Your central mandate is translation: deeply understanding what our scientists are trying to accomplish, and converting those needs into clear, actionable requirements that hardware, software, automation, and systems engineers can build against. Equally important is vision: hearing what scientists ask for today, recognizing the larger need behind the request, and proposing scalable platform solutions that anticipate where the science is going before the scientists have articulated it. A near-term mandate is operationalization: moving validated, scientist-developed assay workflows onto the automated platform as production services, with guaranteed turnaround, equivalent or better data quality, and full sample and data traceability. You will own the phased transition plans that build capability and trust over time, and you will be accountable for demonstrating that the promised efficiency gains are realized.

The platform you will oversee includes integrated systems of liquid handlers (Bravo, Tecan, Hamilton), robotic arms (PF400), automated microscopes (custom in-house imagers, IXMs, etc.), plate readers, incubators, dispensers, Echo acoustic liquid transfer systems, scheduling software, automated compound storage and retrieval systems, and in-house laboratory data systems. These systems operate primarily at Eikon’s Millbrae, California headquarters, with a smaller automation footprint at its New York City site; this role is accountable for automation operations across both. You will be joining a multidisciplinary organization where the integrated platform is central to the science. This position provides the opportunity to shape the strategy of Eikon’s discovery platform, expand the capabilities of our laboratories, and directly influence the speed and quality of drug discovery.

About You

You are equally at home in science and engineering. You have enough scientific depth to engage with biologists and chemists on the substance of their experiments, and enough engineering fluency to specify, challenge, and guide the design of the systems that will run them. You are the person scientists trust to understand what they mean, and the person engineers trust to tell them precisely what to build. You are a platform builder. You have stood up laboratory platforms at biotechnology companies before, and you know the difference between automating a workflow and building a platform: the former solves today’s problem, the latter creates capacity for problems no one has posed yet. You think in terms of architecture, scalability, and operational leverage, and you design systems that outlast their first use case. You are an experienced leader of leaders. You build strong teams, develop managers and senior leaders, set clear priorities across groups with distinct missions, and create an environment of ownership, collaboration, and continuous improvement. You communicate with equal credibility to bench scientists, engineers, vendors, and executive leadership.

What You’ll Do

• Lead, develop, and grow the Platform Integration organization, comprising the Lab Automation, Service, and Compound Management teams, including their managers and technical leads.
• Define and execute a multi-year platform roadmap aligned with Eikon’s scientific strategy, balancing current operational demands against future capability building.
• Partner closely with Research leadership and bench scientists to understand experimental needs, and translate them into requirements that hardware, software, automation, and systems engineers can execute against.
• Propose forward-looking, scalable platform solutions that go beyond the immediate request, anticipating scientific needs before they are articulated.
• Oversee the design, integration, qualification, deployment, and lifecycle management of automated laboratory systems, from liquid handling and robotics to scheduling and orchestration software.
• Ensure platform reliability through the Service team: monitoring, preventive and predictive maintenance, incident response, escalation, root-cause investigation, and corrective action.
• Own the transition of validated assays from Research into automated production operation through phased plans that first demonstrate equivalence, then scale capacity and scope, without disrupting ongoing science.
• Define and meet service-level agreements for operationalized workflows, including guaranteed data turnaround, assay performance equivalence, and complete data traceability, and serve as the accountable scorekeeper for the efficiency gains automation is expected to deliver.
• Oversee Compound Management through its Senior Director, ensuring accurate, timely, and quality-controlled compound registration, storage, tracking, and delivery across Eikon’s sites to screening and follow-up workflows.
• Establish and monitor operational metrics across the platform, such as system uptime, throughput, turnaround time, failure frequency, and mean time to recovery, and use them to drive investment and improvement decisions.
• Set engineering and operational standards for system architecture, equipment integration, software interfaces, error handling, documentation, and acceptance.
• Partner with software and IT teams to integrate platform systems with scheduling, LIMS, inventory, and analytical data pipelines.
• Manage relationships with equipment manufacturers, integrators, and service providers, including service agreements, escalation paths, and vendor performance.
• Develop budgets, capacity models, resource plans, and risk assessments for platform operations and capital investments.
• Evaluate emerging technologies in automation, imaging, and compound management, and recommend investments that expand scientific capability or operational efficiency.
• Communicate platform strategy, operational performance, technical risks, and resource needs to scientific and executive leadership.
• Foster a culture of safety, scientific rigor, accountability, documentation, and continuous improvement across all three teams.

Qualifications

• 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.
• A demonstrated track record of standing up laboratory platforms at biotechnology, pharmaceutical, or life-science companies, from initial concept through scaled production operation.
• Deep working knowledge of both experimental science and engineering practice, with a demonstrated ability to translate scientific needs into engineering requirements and to represent engineering constraints back 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 management operations, including compound registration, automated storage and retrieval, plate production, sample tracking, inventory systems, and quality control across diverse modalities (e.g., small molecules, biologics, peptides, and nucleic acids).
• Strong strategic planning and prioritization skills, with the ability to balance production support against long-horizon platform investments.
• Experience managing budgets, capital equipment planning, and vendor relationships.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with credibility across bench scientists, engineers, and executive leadership.
• Ability to support operations across multiple sites, including periodic travel to Eikon’s New York City laboratory.
• Experience in high-throughput drug discovery, including screening operations and hit-to-lead workflows preferred.
• Familiarity with laboratory informatics, including LIMS, ELN, compound registration databases, scheduling software, inventory systems, and instrument-data pipelines preferred.
• Experience scaling platform organizations through periods of rapid company growth preferred.
• Experience with advanced or automated microscopy, quantitative imaging, or optical instrumentation preferred.
• Experience supporting laboratories operating extended hours or continuously preferred.

At Eikon, employee compensation also includes bonus and equity compensation, in addition to several generous benefit programs, including:​

• 401k plan with company matching​
• Medical (premiums covered by Eikon at 95%), dental and vision insurance (premiums covered by Eikon at 100%)​
• Mental health and wellness benefits​
• Weeklong summer and winter holiday shutdowns​
• Generous paid time off and holiday policies​
• Life/AD&D Insurance (premiums covered by Eikon at 100%) and optional supplemental employee-paid life/AD&D policies ​
• Enhanced parental leave benefit​
• Daily subsidized lunch program when on-site​

The expected salary range for this role is $263,000 to $318,150 depending on skills, competency, and the market demand for your expertise.