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Lab Manager
Full Time
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Job description
Scismic is supporting the growth of a fast-growing, Boston-based mRNA startup that is backed by some of the industry's top investors.
We are looking for the company's first lab manager! This has the potential to be a standard lab manager role, or to morph into whatever direction your strengths lie as the company grows. As our first operations hire on-site, you’ll be the go-to person for anything falling through the cracks — if you’re excited about novelty, good at detailed execution, and have an eye for system-building, you’ll probably thrive in this role.
In the first six months, you’ll probably:
- design systems to keep inventory steady - as you get a feel for our lab, you’ll develop a system for surfacing needs, keeping things in stock, and navigating the rocky supply chains
- take ownership over equipment - placing orders, setting up tools when they come in, and leaning on vendors to get faulty pieces serviced
- look for ways to make lab run smoother - you’ll have a birds eye view of how the lab functions; you’ll be on the lookout for inefficiency or friction points that you can design processes to solve
You’ll be there to catch the reactive stuff, but the heart of your work will be monitoring the horizon and understanding how to structure lab to keep it continually improving as the complexity of the work grows. If you’re excited about this, we’d love to have you.
Must Haves
No strict prerequisites - some of the best people we’ve worked with have come from nontraditional paths. The right person might have done ops for 2-6 years in a high-paced lab environment and be looking to start their own team. We could also imagine a bench scientist with exceptional instincts but no ops experience spinning up quickly here. You’ll be working on site in our newly constructed Seaport lab (in Boston, MA).
You may be the right person if you:
- have 2 years of experience within a biology laboratory setting
- are familiar with safety protocols for BSL2 laboratories
- have experience purchasing equipment and consumables
- identify with some of these traits — when we were thinking of who we’d like in this role, these were some descriptors that came to mind:
- self-directed, proactive, able to track both small details & zoom out to anticipate needs, can design empathetic processes, good taste on where to build process vs. where to keep things ad hoc, able to keep many balls in the air.
- of the traits mentioned, self-directed jumps out as the most important
Compensation & Benefits
- A competitive salary and company equity
- Free premium health insurance, plus a free $4k yearly in a HRA account for any out-of-pocket costs
- 401k with matching, free life & disability insurance, transport benefits, etc
- An opportunity to help build a company on the ground floor and make genuine positive impact on solving some of the world’s biggest problems.