---
title: 'Automation Engineer at Periodic Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/automation-engineer-periodic-labs-menlo-park-e7a6p1rtctm5'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-19'
---

# Automation Engineer at Periodic Labs

- **Company:** Periodic Labs
- **Location:** Menlo Park, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-01
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/periodic-labs/5e692aeb-234b-4112-b318-7ff464977303

## Job description

We’re an AI and physical sciences company building state-of-the-art models to accelerate breakthroughs across materials, energy, and beyond. Backed by world-class investors and growing rapidly, we operate at the pace the frontier requires. Our team brings deep expertise, genuine ownership, and an insatiable drive to push the boundaries of what’s scientifically possible.

## About the Role

Join our team of scientists and engineers building a lab where AI and automation speed up materials discovery. We’re building an autonomous lab to speed up materials discovery, and we need someone who loves making instruments, robots, and data systems run together smoothly. As our Automation Engineer, you’ll turn scientific workflows into working software and integrations by designing clear data models, connecting instruments and automation to our lab information systems, and making sure everything stays in sync, safely, and reliably.

## What You’ll Do

- Collaborate with bench scientists to translate experiments and lab workflows into clear integration specs and data models.
- Work with integrators to design and build automated workcells for materials R&D.
- Build and maintain services that connect instruments and robots to lab information systems.
- Develop instrument drivers that automate lab workflows by generating command sequences and invoking vendor API/SDK methods.
- Collaborate with AI and data scientists to tightly integrate the autonomous lab with AI models for analysis and planning of experiments.

You Will Thrive in This Role If You Have

- BS in EE/CS/ME/Controls or equivalent.
- 5+ years in lab automation, integration, or industrial automation software.
- Hands-on experience with robotic lab automation systems.
- Strong experience with scripting/programming (Python preferred).
- Familiarity with APIs, databases, and enterprise software integration.
- Hands-on experience with information management and execution systems, such as LIMS or MES.

Especially Strong Candidates May Also Have

- Experience with containers, CI/CD, and Git-based workflows.
- Background in lab informatics or scientific data management.

Mechanics

- Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or similar experience
- Location: Menlo Park, CA
- Compensation: $200,000-$250,000 + equity
- Visa sponsorship: Yes, we sponsor visas.

## About Periodic Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Periodic Labs is building AI scientists and autonomous laboratories to accelerate scientific discovery in the physical sciences, starting with materials design and semiconductor research.
- **Entity Type**: Private (seed-stage, $300M total funding raised in 2025)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, USA (primary) and Menlo Park, California, USA (dual locations) [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/periodic-labs), [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/periodic-labs)
- **Founded**: 2025 [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/periodic-labs)
- **Founders**: Ekin Dogus Cubuk (Co-Founder) and other undisclosed founding team members with backgrounds at OpenAI, DeepMind, and Google [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/periodic-labs), [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Physical sciences R&D, artificial intelligence, autonomous laboratory systems
- **Target customers**: B2B – enterprises in semiconductor manufacturing, materials science, energy, and other deep-tech sectors requiring experimental research
- **Mission or purpose statement**: “Our goal is to create an AI scientist” that can autonomously hypothesize, run experiments, and learn from results to discover new materials and accelerate technological progress [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)

## Products & Services
- **AI Scientist**: A suite of AI models trained to generate hypotheses, design experiments, and interpret results across physical science domains.
- **Autonomous Laboratories**: Fully automated, high-throughput experimental platforms that produce large volumes of high-quality data (including negative results) to train AI models. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)
- **Custom Agents for Industry**: Tailored AI agents for engineers and researchers, e.g., helping a semiconductor manufacturer analyze heat dissipation data to accelerate iteration. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private seed-stage company)
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – $300M in a single seed round (2025) [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/periodic-labs)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: a16z, Felicis, DST, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture arm), Accel, Emerson Collective, Fellows Fund, Coatue; individual backers include Jeff Bezos, Elad Gil, Eric Schmidt, Jeff Dean. Also collaborating with academic advisors from Stanford, Northwestern, and more. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/), [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/periodic-labs)
- **Growth Signals**: 40 employees as of mid-2026, with monthly headcount growth of +19.6% and 25 active job postings (+47.1% quarterly growth) [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/periodic-labs)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Proprietary data generation**: Autonomous labs produce massive, unique datasets (including valuable negative results) that do not exist in public literature, creating a data moat.
- **Founding team pedigree**: Core team co-created ChatGPT, DeepMind’s GNoME, OpenAI’s Operator (Agent), MatterGen, and scaled autonomous physics labs – rare concentration of AI + science talent. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)
- **End-to-end integration**: AI models, simulation, and physical experimentation are all in-house, enabling rapid closed-loop learning.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale autonomous labs**: Expand capacity to generate experimental data across multiple physical science domains.
- **Target high-impact problems**: Superconductor discovery, semiconductor heat dissipation, and other materials challenges that can unlock Moore’s Law, advanced energy grids, and space travel. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)
- **Develop the first generation of AI scientists**: Train models that can operate independently of human input across the entire scientific method.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: “From bits to atoms” – a deep-tech startup blending frontier AI with hands-on lab work. Emphasis on rapid iteration and real-world impact.
- **Work policy**: In-office preferred; primary offices in Menlo Park and San Francisco, CA. Most roles are on-site. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/periodic-labs)
- **Notable perks**: Work alongside world-class AI researchers and experimental scientists; access to cutting-edge automated lab equipment; early-stage equity and high-growth trajectory.
- **Engineering culture**: 34% of employees are in technical roles; talent sourced from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, xAI, and Stanford – strong peer learning environment. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/periodic-labs)

## Sources
1. [periodic.com](https://periodic.com/)
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/periodic-labs)
3. [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/periodic-labs)
4. [linkedin.com](https://www.linkedin.com/company/periodic-labs)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/periodic-labs](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/periodic-labs)

## Other roles at Periodic Labs

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- [Process Safety Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/process-safety-engineer-periodic-labs-menlo-park-kzcpxh3d9mg6) — Menlo Park, CA
- [Controller](https://feeny.ai/job/controller-periodic-labs-menlo-park-y8xmsezeq3ch) — Menlo Park, CA
- [Research Scientist, Scaling RL](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-scaling-rl-periodic-labs-menlo-park-g9s9gctkbnjs) — Menlo Park, CA / Montréal, Canada
- [Research Scientist/Research Engineer, Midtraining](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-research-engineer-midtraining-periodic-labs-menlo-park-gh5qfkb8vxth) — Menlo Park, CA
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