Culture Biosciences

Culture Biosciences

Staff/ Senior/ Principal Systems Engineer - R&D

South San Francisco, CA · Principal · Full-time

Sponsorship not specified$165k-$260kDetected 35 days ago
PythonVendor ManagementSystems EngineeringCell CultureLeadershipCommunicationCollaborationMentoring

About the role

  • The candidate will translate Business Needs into R&D objectives and system architectures.

Responsibilities

  • Integration strategy: Build the integration plan (bring-up sequencing, dependency mapping, integration test strategy) and lead cross-functional execution through integration milestones.
  • Technical tradeoff studies: Lead tradeoffs of performance, reliability, safety, cost, manufacturability, and document decisions, assumptions, and risks.
  • Complex debugging & Root Cause Analysis: Drive root-cause across subsystems
  • implement corrective actions and regression prevention (design changes, test additions, process updates).
  • Design review leadership: Lead system-level design reviews and readiness gates around architecture, integration readiness and verification readiness.
  • Standards & mentorship: Create templates/best practices and mentor other systems engineers and tech leads.
  • Partner with operations early: Influence DFM/DFT and serviceability decisions early enough to avoid late redesign. Assist with production test plans and production workflows.
  • Vendor management: Work directly with vendors to drive technology, understand design needs, and verify 3rd party integrated technology.
  • Partner with Commercial/Sales: Stay abreast of competitive technologies, Win/Loss reports and overall customer needs to help define future developments for the business.
  • We seek to build a company that promotes inclusion and expands the diversity of our industry as a whole.

Requirements

  • Strong track record of leading cross-functional technical decisions and delivering integrated prototypes that meet defined acceptance criteria.
  • Expert ability to write concise system requirements and define interfaces that reduce integration churn.
  • Broad experience with software, writing scripts (Python) and using CAD tools to evaluate mechanical and electrical designs.
  • You consider your ability to organize and plan as one of your greatest strengths.
  • You are an excellent communicator, self-motivating, work well independently and with others, and have strong emotional intelligence.
  • The candidate must have a strong and experienced background in Bioprocessing, Bioreactor design, and applications and have a breadth of understanding of Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded, and Software).

Nice to have

  • Advanced degree (Masters or PhD preferred) in Bioengineering, Chemistry, Biology, or a related field.
  • 15+ years of Industry experience with 10+ years in the biopharma, biotech, or life science field.
  • Significant experience architecting and integrating complex

Skills

  • Experience with ambiguity-heavy programs: rapid prototyping, evolving requirements, and parallel exploration.
  • Comfort with requirements/configuration discipline without over-bureaucratizing early-stage R&D.
  • Location & Schedule:
  • This position based in our office located in South San Francisco and is required to be onsite 5 days a week.
  • Stay abreast of competitive technologies, Win/Loss reports and overall customer needs to help define future developments for the business.

Compensation

  • Culture Biosciences's compensation package includes market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, and great benefits.
  • We are hiring for multiple levels and backgrounds so final offers may vary within the range provided based on experience, expertise, and other factors.
  • Our expected base salary range for this role is: $165,000 to 260,000.

Benefits

  • Competitive salary and equity compensation
  • Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life insurance
  • Medical and Dependent Care FSA (prorated based on start-date)
  • Responsible Time Off (non-accrual based) policy, 11 paid company holidays and a week-long winter break
  • 12 weeks of parental leave at full salary
  • Verification strategy in R&D: Define verification intent early (what "works" means), build coverage plans, and ensure prototypes generate evidence-not just demos.
  • Education and Experience:

Company info

  • Culture's mission is to simplify and accelerate bioprocess development to enable our customers to bring their biopharmaceutical products to market faster.
  • With a focus on upstream cell culture process development, Culture has developed a unique platform that merges products, services and data management that can be applied to mammalian, microbial and viral vector production processes. This platform enables high-throughput process development projects to be rapidly and seamlessly executed directly by our customers in their own facilities, in our service laboratories, or both, all driven by our cloud-connected web application, accessible from anywhere, for designing, managing and analyzing experiments.
  • At Culture, we combine our passions for biomanufacturing, engineering, and operations to build new solutions that make bioprocess development faster. We value curiosity, communication, collaboration, a customer focused mindset and a drive for results.
  • The Opportunity:
  • With a focus on upstream cell culture process development, Culture has developed a unique platform that merges products, services and data management that can be applied to mammalian, microbial and viral vector production processes.
  • This platform enables high-throughput process development projects to be rapidly and seamlessly executed directly by our customers in their own facilities, in our service laboratories, or both, all driven by our cloud-connected web application, accessible from anywhere, for designing, managing and analyzing experiments.
  • At Culture, we combine our passions for biomanufacturing, engineering, and operations to build new solutions that make bioprocess development faster.
  • We value curiosity, communication, collaboration, a customer focused mindset and a drive for results.
  • Culture Biosciences is looking for a Staff/ Senior Staff/ Principal Systems Engineer in R&D as the technical authority for end-to-end system design and integration of complex, cross-disciplinary platforms.
  • They define interfaces and requirements, and lead integration and verification strategy from prototype through pre-production readiness.
  • This role resolves the hardest technical tradeoffs, drives technical alignment across teams, and raises the organization's systems engineering bar through mentorship and standards.
  • Requirements & interface leadership: Establish User Needs, System Requirements, and traceability to verification and validation (clear, testable, version-controlled).
  • System architecture ownership: Define the end-to-end architecture, subsystem boundaries, and interfaces across mechanical, electrical, firmware/software, controls, and test.
  • Validation strategy for end use: Assist with Validation development and help establish plans that relate to User Needs. Interface with Application teams and Early Adopters in validating their workflows.
  • Complex debugging & Root Cause Analysis: Drive root-cause across subsystems; implement corrective actions and regression prevention (design changes, test additions, process updates).
  • Significant experience architecting and integrating complex R&D systems (multi-disciplinary: hardware + software/controls + test).
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This listing is sourced directly from Culture Biosciences's careers page and normalized into a canonical job model.