Device Drivers (Automation and Robotics) Engineer
Hi! We’re Radix. We’re building the next revolution of scientific tools so scientists can spend more time doing what they do best: science. Right now, scientists with PhDs and years of experience spend literal hours every day copying and pasting data in Excel and manually pipetting. We think this is a problem and we’d rather they got that time back so they could put more time into important scientific discoveries like curing cancer, alzheimers, and even rare genetic conditions. Radix brings to biology a framework and a set of tools much like the tools for CAD/CAM/CAE or VLSI Design.
The biggest roadblocks biologists face today aren’t scientific, they’re operational. They’re about the sheer scale and complexity of making labs work properly. Increasing combinatorial complexity, choppy data flows, awkward equipment integration and poor software compatibility are all holding scientists–and discovery–back. We’re solving these problems and doing it by making a compiler, operating system, and programming language for the computer architecture of the modern biology lab.
We’re a diverse and merry band of nerds, hackers, and cat affectionados. If you work for us, you won't be the only woman, non-binary or trans person, POC, Latino/a/x, non-US citizen, wearer of silly hats, or cat! A key commonality is that we love working with our smart, passionate teammates and customers and that we’re dedicated to improving biologists’ day to day, especially when it means solving hard problems in CS. We also like mechanical keyboards and interesting programming languages a lot. More than is remotely reasonable.
We’re making progress every day towards dramatically improving scientists day to day. Our products delight our clients who are able to do much more with the help of our software and are able to stop doing the boring mechanics that they hate. We strive to make practical, pragmatic steps towards useful solutions that’ll let our customers. Sounds like the sort of team you’d like to be a part of?
In this position, you will integrate hardware into our ecosystem so biologists can work with it without having to worry about its idiosyncrasies. There’s a lot of figuring out what works, where the documentation (if it exists) is wrong, and compensating for the implementation mistakes of others. Unlike a lot of automation and robotics work where you’re implementing a specific protocol or behavior, we enable all possible protocols and expose that functionality to our compiler. We do bad things in this work by necessity. Our goal is to contain the sins to the drivers so everyone else at Radix and our customers don’t have to first-hand-experience how bad the interfaces we work with are.
A note about our hiring process: we look at candidates holistically without regard to positions that are open. We ask two simple questions: “Will this person make Radix a stronger and more capable team?” and “Are we excited to work with them?” If the answer to both of those questions is yes, we make an offer. As a result, none of the skills are hard requirements and you won’t see desired years of experience in any of our job postings. We are happy to hire people who are new grads (and non-grads) through to industry veterans. If you think this work sounds exciting, please apply!
Key skills (pick any 2-5):
● Experience working with physical hardware, especially automation & robotics.
● Think reverse engineering hardware and software from less-than-helpful documentation sounds like a challenge you’d enjoy or like to work adjacent to. In this work, the docs are always wrong and we often have to figure things out as we go.
● Ability to code around others' mistakes and API bugs. You take buggy APIs and wrap them in programmatic bubble wrap so they’re safe for others to use without needing to see what you’ve seen.
● You use the term “API” liberally. Notably, you accept that “Any program that has a usable GUI has an API” is a controversial but functionally usable stance.
● Experience with object oriented and functional programming (Scala, Ocaml, Haskell, Erlang, Java, Python, and/orC++) or a strong desire and a demonstrated capacity to learn.
● You enjoy working with extremely talented biologists, learning about their work, and using that knowledge to inform and enable your developlopment.
● Experience mentoring, collaborating, and learning with engineers at all levels and across focus areas. We learn from each other and collaborate a lot. Interdisciplinary work is required to make our products usable.
● Recognize that our sales colleges do critical work and are happy to assist them by joining on calls, assisting them with pricing and scoping and/or developing demo videos with assistance.
● Experience tracking down annoying software bugs and functionally testing software.
Nice to have (pick 1+):
● Have done some things in a bio lab or think this sounds cool.
● Experience with GNU/Linux (we do most our work in Linux) and Git for version control.
● Strong critical thinking, causal reasoning, and general tech knowledge.
● Interested in or have experience with compiler and run-time systems.
● Experience with Akka or similar actor model systems (like ROS and DDS), the Java virtual machine (JVM),Raspberry Pis, Apache Kafka, type systems, optimization, data analysis, traveling salesman problems, run time optimization, and/or implementing complex math in code.
● Human factors, user centered, or general design exposure.
Radix is a exciting work environment. We care about each other. We’re also LGBTQ+, polyamoroy, kink, gender, minority, and most other things supporting. We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.
