Principal Robotic Automation Engineer

POSITION OVERVIEW

HighRes is seeking a Principal Automation Engineer to join our Automation Engineering team at our headquarters in Beverly, Massachusetts. Reporting to the Associate Director of Lab Automation Engineering, you will set the technical standard for how we deploy and integrate our systems across a growing engineering organization and become a leading voice on both.

The systems we deliver are growing in scale and sophistication, including multi-system integrations with orchestration software, laboratory information management systems (LIMS), electronic lab notebooks (ELN), and third-party software platforms. This role exists to architect how that work gets done: the standards, the integration patterns, and the test methods that govern commissioning across the product line, and to define how new and uncommon products are operated, integrated, and tested before they reach customer sites at scale.

The Principal Robotic Automation Engineer operates differently from other roles in the department. Less time is spent in the field, and more is invested in the work that compounds. When this person does deploy on-site, it is because the technical risk of the project warrants it. This role suits someone who has built deep expertise across laboratory automation, earned credibility through results on the hardest projects, and is ready to bring that expertise to bear at an organizational level.

RESPONSIBILITIES

Deployment Architecture, New Product Introduction, and Escalation

• Define how the department deploys: the standards, integration patterns, and acceptance criteria that govern commissioning across the product line
• Architect the technical approach for multi-system deployments, including integrations with LIMS, ELN, and third-party software platforms
• Establish integration patterns for cross-system workflow orchestration and order-level sample tracking
• Lead the integration of new HighRes products and third-party devices into the department's deployment processes and standards
• Define how new and uncommon products are operated, integrated, and tested, and evaluate new hardware and software platforms for deployment readiness, identifying gaps and building the processes and documentation to close them
• Partner with Product, Applications, Software, and System Design Engineering to define new product introduction requirements from the automation engineering perspective
• Serve as the final technical escalation point for multi-system and integration issues that exceed senior and lead engineer capacity, owning outcomes from diagnosis through resolution and documentation
• Identify patterns across escalations, deployment failures, and quality gaps, and design systemic responses that prevent recurrence
• Own on-site execution selectively, where a deployment's technical risk warrants direct Principal involvement

Capability Building and Cross-Functional Partnership

• Drive technical training programs, standards documentation, and lessons learned processes that raise the technical floor of the entire department
• Develop and maintain internal technical resources that give engineers the tools to handle increasingly complex systems independently
• Serve as a mentor and technical resource to engineers at every level of the department
• Partner with Applications, Software Engineering, Customer Support, and Professional Services on complex integrations and system-level technical decisions
• Represent the automation engineering perspective in cross-functional design reviews, product planning sessions, and escalation forums
• Communicate technical risks, requirements, and recommendations to internal and external stakeholders clearly and with appropriate context