---
title: 'Software Engineer, Lab Automation at Adaptyv'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/software-engineer-lab-automation-adaptyv-lausanne-q9jt0h6709sk'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-11-07'
---

# Software Engineer, Lab Automation at Adaptyv

- **Company:** Adaptyv
- **Location:** Lausanne, Switzerland
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-10-19
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-11-07
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/adaptyv/8e67b2b8-0cff-4dcf-96c2-572926ffeb73

## Job description

Adaptyv is building an automated lab that lets AI agents run biology experiments. We're entering the era of agentic science where AI models can now design novel proteins, propose hypotheses, and iterate on experimental results. But they can't run the experiments themselves - that's still a manual, months-long process. We're building the infrastructure that gives AI agents access to the physical world. We are one of the fastest growing biotech companies, trusted by leading biopharmas, frontier AI labs, and the techbio companies pushing the field forward. This is a rare chance to help advance some of the most important work happening in biotech today. Our automated lab is powered by a deep software + hardware stack: lab instruments worth millions of USD reverse-engineered into API-controllable hardware, dozens of devices orchestrated through complex workflows, full observability on everything that happens in the lab, processing pipelines for messy physical-world data, and AI systems that troubleshoot production results and accelerate assay development. We’re growing rapidly and are hiring for talented people to scale and support the massive demand for AI-driven wet lab experimentation.

## About the Role

You'll build work-cell orchestration, instrument drivers, protocol scheduling, error-recovery logic, and monitoring. Physical systems fail in ways pure software doesn't — a plate gets stuck, a liquid handler skips a well, a temperature controller drifts. Your job is to make the system handle all of it gracefully. This is a broad, hands-on role for a strong engineer who wants their code to drive real machines and see it run the same day.

## What You'll Do

- Build orchestration software that coordinates liquid handlers, plate readers, incubators, and robot arms — handling timing dependencies, state, and error recovery.
- Reverse-engineer and develop instrument drivers and APIs. Each instrument speaks a different protocol (serial, USB, TCP/IP); you work out how it talks and build a clean abstraction over it.
- Model and execute complex multi-step protocols reliably — a single run can span dozens of steps across multiple instruments.
- Build error-recovery logic so that when something fails mid-run, the system retries, skips, alerts, or pauses depending on the failure mode.
- Create monitoring and observability for work-cell health: instrument status, run progress, error rates.
- Debug across the software–hardware boundary — figuring out whether bad data is a comms, firmware, calibration, or code problem.
- Work closely with lab automation engineers, the rest of the software team, and the scientists running production.

Stack TypeScript and Python, Postgres (Supabase), Modal for compute. We control instruments with open-source Python tooling like PyLabRobot and PyHamilton wherever we can, rather than proprietary vendor GUIs.

## What We're Looking For

- Strong software engineering skills. You write production code in Python and/or TypeScript — well-structured and maintainable, not just prototypes.
- Comfortable at the hardware-software boundary. You've built software that drives physical devices, or you're excited to. You can read a protocol spec, debug a flaky connection, and reason about timing.
- Lab automation experience is a strong plus. Familiarity with PyHamilton, PyLabRobot, Opentrons, or similar tooling helps — as does a background in robotics, industrial automation, IoT, or embedded systems.
- Maker and hacker attitude. You like figuring out how closed systems work and building the thing that makes them work better. Bonus if you're comfortable with electronics, microcontrollers, or a 3D printer when an integration needs a physical fix.
- AI-native builder. It's 2026 — you build with coding agents like Claude Code as a default, and you have sharp judgment about what they produce.
- Self-starter and independent. You define what needs building from how the lab actually works, not just what's in the ticket.
- Reliability-minded. The lab runs 24/7; you design systems where one instrument failing doesn't cascade through the whole work cell.

Biology background not required — but you should be excited that the code runs real experiments. Details

- Location: Lausanne, Switzerland (on-site — you need hands-on access to physical instruments).
- Type: Full time
- Start date: ASAP

Application deadline We are reviewing applicants on a rolling basis.

## About Adaptyv

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Adaptyv is a cloud lab that enables protein designers to validate and test novel protein designs using fully automated labs, delivering clean, AI-ready experimental data in under three weeks.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage — raised $10.9M total; last round: $8.0M Seed led by ACE Ventures in October 2025)
- **Headquarters**: Lausanne, Switzerland
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Daniel Nakhaee-Zadeh Gutierrez (Co-Founder) and Julian Englert (Co-Founder & CEO)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Biotechnology research / Protein engineering / Synthetic biology lab services
- **Target customers**: B2B — AI-first protein engineering teams, computational biologists, biotech/pharma R&D groups (both startups and established enterprises)
- **Mission statement**: “To make proteins easier to engineer” by building technologies that allow protein engineers to design and test new proteins for medicines, industrial enzymes, and functional materials [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/).

## Products & Services
- **Adaptyv Cloud Lab** (Primary offering): A fully automated protein validation lab. Clients submit protein sequences digitally; Adaptyv performs synthesis, expression, purification, and a wide range of assays, returning raw and labelled data in under 3 weeks. Priced at **$149 per protein** (includes 2 replicates). Data is accessible via a modern experiment management platform, eliminating email-based quoting and Excel sheets [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/).
- **Adaptyv API**: Programmatic access to the lab, allowing seamless integration into users’ design–build–test workflows. Supports high-throughput and automated submission [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/).
- **Experiment Management Platform**: Web-based dashboard to order assays, monitor progress, analyze results, and track historical performance of protein design rounds [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/).

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metrics**:
  - **Revenue**: $1.0M (estimated annual revenue per LinkedIn) [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)
  - **Total Funding**: $10,939,391 across four rounds (Pre-Seed via Y Combinator, Pre-Seed led by Founderful, Debt from Foundation for Innovation and Technology, and Seed from ACE Ventures) [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)
- **Notable Investors**: Y Combinator (Summer 2021 batch), Founderful, ACE Ventures (lead Seed round), Foundation for Innovation and Technology (FIT) [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Team size grew from ~25 (Y Combinator profile, 2025) to 31 employees (LinkedIn, 2026) — a **65% year-over-year increase** [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/adaptyv) [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)
  - 30 open positions listed on careers page (April 2026) [adaptyvbio.com/careers](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/careers)
  - Operates in 7 countries, with the majority of the team in Switzerland [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Speed**: Fastest protein validation lab — “go from sequence design to experimental data in under 3 weeks” [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/)
- **Data quality**: Automated, standardized lab processes produce consistent, labelled data that is directly useful for training generative AI models (billed as “lab-in-the-loop protein design”)
- **Transparent per‑protein pricing**: No hidden costs, no RFQ cycles — $149/protein simplifies budgeting for teams of all sizes
- **Purpose‑built for AI‑first workflows**: Seamless API and platform integration enables iterative design cycles, reducing time between computational predictions and wet-lab validation [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/)

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Scaling lab automation capacity to handle increasing demand; expanding the range of assays offered (biophysical, functional, cell-based); deepening integrations with AI protein design tools; growing the team across biology, software, and operations.
- **Direction**: To become the de facto “cloud lab” layer for the protein design stack, powering the world’s best AI-driven protein engineering teams [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/) [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)

## Why Work Here
- **Culture & Values**: Emphasizes first‑principles thinking, data‑driven decision‑making, an action‑oriented mindset, and strong work ethic. The team is composed of talented engineers from molecular biology, lab automation, software engineering, and machine learning [adaptyvbio.com/careers](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/careers)
- **Location & Flexibility**: Headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. Most roles offer **hybrid** or **remote** arrangements (within Switzerland/Europe), with some roles listed as Lausanne/Hybrid/Remote [adaptyvbio.com/careers](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/careers)
- **Perks & Environment**: A chance to shape the infrastructure of protein engineering — building revolutionary technologies in synthetic biology and lab automation. The team has strong academic and startup roots (EPFL, Harvard, YC). Open roles include Software Engineers, AI/ML Engineers, Lab Automation Engineers, Scientists (Protein Expression, Antibody Developability, Cell-Based Assays), and Operations roles.
- **Open Positions**: 30 roles across software, biology, lab automation, and business development as of April 2026 [adaptyvbio.com/careers](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/careers)

## Sources
1. [adaptyvbio.com](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/)
2. [adaptyvbio.com/careers](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/careers)
3. [ycombinator.com](https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/adaptyv)
4. [linkedin.com](https://ch.linkedin.com/company/adaptyvbio)
5. [adaptyvbio.com/team](https://www.adaptyvbio.com/team)

## Other roles at Adaptyv

- [Data Scientist, Lab & Protein Data](https://feeny.ai/job/data-scientist-lab-protein-data-adaptyv-lausanne-m9wnp6b5gh5h) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Lab Operations Associate](https://feeny.ai/job/lab-operations-associate-adaptyv-lausanne-k3126jnzaa2z) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Scientist, Protein Expression & Purification](https://feeny.ai/job/scientist-protein-expression-purification-adaptyv-lausanne-agddgxmee0bb) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Bioengineer, Display & Library Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/bioengineer-display-library-engineering-adaptyv-lausanne-3qv5hw7j4c6n) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Lab Technician, Molecular Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/lab-technician-molecular-biology-adaptyv-lausanne-f1q0k1kq2z7s) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Intern, Molecular Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/intern-molecular-biology-adaptyv-lausanne-4r1jjpz1b8ge) — Lausanne, Switzerland
- [Research Associate, Molecular Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/research-associate-molecular-biology-adaptyv-lausanne-z0b7h1p24s82) — Lausanne, Switzerland
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