Staff Software Engineer (Core Systems)

Automata is transforming the way labs work with open, integrated automation. Our mission is to unlock the potential of labs and the potential of the people who work in them.

Own end-to-end squad delivery within Product Engineering (Software), in a department with Product, Engineering, Design, Data & AI (PEDDA)—turning challenges into predictable, high-quality product delivery

* Hands-on squad leader–set the bar of what high-quality looks like at pace

* Own part of the technical architecture–set the direction of our product

* Partner with PEDDA, Customer Success, and Sales leadership to align on challenges, initiatives, and roadmap

* Lead, and level-up high-performing Product Engineers that report to you—hiring, mentoring, and setting an uncompromising bar for execution

* Architect, and continuously evolve operating systems that scale—eliminating bottlenecks, increasing velocity, and enabling the squad to move autonomously

* Embed AI-native and automation-first ways of working—unlocking step-change improvements in productivity and throughput

* Bridge strategy and execution—ensuring we build what we defined; that what we build, ships fast; and what we ship, delivers results with high quality

The stack:

We use the right tool for the job. Our stack runs on Kubernetes edge clusters deployed in customer labs

* Go and Python services

* NATS JetStream is our event bus

* OR-Tools CP-SAT for constraint solving

* OpenTelemetry tracing end to end

* MCP for the agent surface, gRPC for driver surface, gRPC APIs, SDKs, CLIS

* Large fleet of robots and hundreds of lab instruments at the end of every code path.

You:

* You've architected and shipped a genuinely complex realtime or streaming system — and can talk about its failure modes for an hour.

* You want the whole stack, not a layer: the UI a scientist touches, the backend behind it, the engine, down to the drivers that move the machines — and you judge every layer by what it does for the user.

* You've taken complex features from idea to shipped, end to end — not incremental improvements to someone else's design — and you can point at the product impact.

🍎 Vitality Health Insurance

👀  Eye Care

🚗 Salary Sacrifice - EV

🚲 Salary Sacrifice - Bike & Tech

🧘🏼‍♀️ Wellbeing & Support

☀️ Wellbeing & Development Allowance

💙 Spill & Employee Assistance Programme

😊 Additional Leave

👵🏼 Pension Scheme

🫂 Group Life & Critical Illness cover

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We are an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Discrimination of any kind based on race, colour, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status is strictly prohibited.

£130,000 - £170,000/year