Scientist – Lab Automation Engineer

Scientist – Lab Automation Engineer

Type: Permanent

Location: Macclesfield

Role Description

AstraZeneca is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on innovating and delivering life-saving medicines while prioritizing sustainability and minimizing our environmental impact. We foster a collaborative, inclusive culture where colleagues are empowered to share ideas and feel valued and rewarded.

Pharmaceutical Technology & Development (PT&D) transforms ground breaking science into medicines for millions, working across the value chain to design, develop, and scale up drug products from early research through commercial manufacture.

In Chemical Development or equivalent experience, we combine scientific expertise and innovation to create and optimise sustainable, commercially viable processes for active pharmaceutical ingredients. By collaborating widely and embracing new technologies, we continually improve how we deliver medicines.

We are offering a scientist position to support our growing fleet of automated and semi-automated experimental equipment. You’ll play a key technical role in advancing our Lab of the Future programme—enabling the uptake and application of both existing and innovative automated experimental platforms which are designed to ensure smooth, efficient data generation and data flows across our digital lab ecosystem. As part of a team of automation specialists, you will be responsible for the ownership, solving, and optimisation of a diverse fleet of laboratory instruments used for generation of experimental data. You will play a critical role in maintaining the availability and performance of these systems, as well as ensuring that the instruments deployed are suitable for the experimental workflows being driven.

You’ll collaborate closely with chemists, engineers, data scientists, facilities technicians, and IT to enable data-rich experimentation and smarter process development. Your hands-on responsibilities include working with automation hardware and software, solving systems, supporting integration projects, and ensuring all solutions are robust and quality compliant. The role is primarily laboratory focused with associated documentation demands.

What You’ll Do

In this role, you will:

• Be the domain expert supporting a wide range of laboratory automation equipment used in synthetic chemistry and particle engineering workflows, including various automated weighing platforms, Mettler Toledo automated lab reactor fleet, parallel synthesis tumble stirrers. This includes providing guidance of the best choices of equipment for execution of experimental workflows.

• Be accountable for an equipment fleet supporting >100 lab scientists across multiple skills, and working with our facilities partners, proactively manage the equipment and its associated auxiliaries, solving issues, and ensuring equipment is maintained according to AstraZeneca GLS standards.

• Be responsible for the documentation required to manage the instrument fleet including qualification assurance, purchase orders, risk assessments and change controls.

• Work collaboratively as part of a multi-functional automation team and liaise closely with project scientists, facilities technicians, instrument engineers, IT specialists, and super users across different scientific subject areas and administrative groups to ensure projects have access to the instruments to generate quality data on demand.

• Complete practical experimental work on our automated platforms. This includes the execution of instrument testing protocols when designing new workflows or assuring data quality on new instrument investments. It may extend to provision of project data which feeds the development activities delivering new drug substance targets.

• Ensure quality training is available and delivered to new users

• Communicate effectively with the department to identify and drive improvements in our lab working environment and the user experience from the automation fleet.

• Provide metrics relating to the instrument fleet which will support solving activities and further investment in advanced automation.

Key Skills & Experience

A successful candidate will have:

Essential skills and experience:

• Degree or equivalent experience in chemical or engineering sciences, or equivalent industrial experience.

• Understanding of the practical requirements of synthetic chemistry and/or particle engineering experimental workflows.

• Hands-on, lab-focused attitude with strong attention to detail and proven scientific rigour.

• Excellent teamwork and collaboration, with the ability to work effectively with multiple scientific and administrative abilities including external vendors.

• Data driven attitude with problem-solving ability.

• Willingness to define and enforce laboratory procedures.

• General IT proficiency including use of spreadsheets.

Desirable skills and experience:

• Laboratory instrumentation maintenance experience within an industrial environment.

• Knowledge of GLS requirements for instrument maintenance.

• Experience working with Mettler Toledo automated lab reactors or similar automation systems.

• Demonstrated experience delivering training.

• Practical experience in performing synthetic chemistry or particle formation experiments.

• Coding in Python or similar

AstraZeneca is an equal opportunity employer. AstraZeneca will consider all qualified applicants for employment without discrimination on grounds of disability, sex or sexual orientation, pregnancy or parental leave status, race or national or ethnic origin, age, religion or belief, gender identity or re-assignment, marital or civil partnership status, protected veteran status (if applicable) or any other characteristic protected by law.

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Date Posted

15-Aug-2025

Closing Date

31-Aug-2025

Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.