Chemistry Principal Scientist

Job description

The opportunity Substrate is building a network of fully autonomous wet labs, cloud-based data production facilities for AI biology, integrated with foundation models to become the critical infrastructure layer for AI-driven biological discovery. Our first node opens in King’s Cross, London, with several integrated workcells and two scientific verticals, protein science and functional genomics, online by mid-2027. Our customers range from foundation model labs to global pharma. We are hiring a Chemistry Principal Scientist to develop the strategy for chemistry at Substrate. This is a deliberately exploratory hire. Your job is to figure out what shape a chemistry vertical should take, whether the case for it holds, and what the day-1 architecture should look like if it does. Depending on what you find, the role evolves: you may grow into the Chemistry Lead position, a Head of Chemistry may be recruited above you, or your chemistry expertise folds into the protein science and functional genomics verticals where it is needed regardless. All three paths are real. About Substrate Substrate is spinning out of Automata, the UK lab automation company that has built the workcell platform our labs run on. Our four co-founders are Mostafa ElSayed (CEO and founder of Automata), Oli Hoy (formerly VP Customer Experience at Automata), Alexey Morgunov (AI Scientist co-founder, leading the intelligence software product), and a Founding Biology Lead joining shortly. We are aiming to have ramped up to 32 people by the end of Q1 2027. We are funded in parallel by a combination of venture funding and government grants. We are not a cloud lab and we are not a CRO. We are an autonomous lab platform with closed-loop integration available as one operating mode for foundation model partners. The role You will own the chemistry strategy at Substrate. If we build the vertical, it will mirror our protein science vertical but for small molecule therapeutic candidates: making the molecules through some combination of on-site synthesis, pre-sourced precursors with on-site coupling, and external procurement, and testing them through a portfolio of characterisation assays designed for closed-loop work with generative AI. The use case we are most interested in is a model asking for a large set of candidate molecules and Substrate making and testing what is possible quickly, in a tighter cycl…