Staff/ Senior/ Principal Systems Engineer - R&D

About Us:

Culture’s mission is to simplify and accelerate bioprocess development to enable our customers to bring their biopharmaceutical products to market faster.

With a focus on upstream cell culture process development, Culture has developed a unique platform that merges products, services and data management that can be applied to mammalian, microbial and viral vector production processes. This platform enables high-throughput process development projects to be rapidly and seamlessly executed directly by our customers in their own facilities, in our service laboratories, or both, all driven by our cloud-connected web application, accessible from anywhere, for designing, managing and analyzing experiments.

At Culture, we combine our passions for biomanufacturing, engineering, and operations to build new solutions that make bioprocess development faster. We value curiosity, communication, collaboration, a customer focused mindset and a drive for results.

Culture Biosciences is looking for a Staff/ Senior Staff/ Principal Systems Engineer in R&D as the technical authority for end-to-end system design and integration of complex, cross-disciplinary platforms. The candidate will translate Business Needs into R&D objectives and system architectures.  They define interfaces and requirements, and lead integration and verification strategy from prototype through pre-production readiness. This role resolves the hardest technical tradeoffs, drives technical alignment across teams, and raises the organization’s systems engineering bar through mentorship and standards.  The candidate must have a strong and experienced background in Bioprocessing, Bioreactor design, and applications and have a breadth of understanding of Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Embedded, and Software).

What You’ll Do:

• Requirements & interface leadership: Establish User Needs, System Requirements, and traceability to verification and validation (clear, testable, version-controlled).
• System architecture ownership: Define the end-to-end architecture, subsystem boundaries, and interfaces across mechanical, electrical, firmware/software, controls, and test.
• Integration strategy: Build the integration plan (bring-up sequencing, dependency mapping, integration test strategy) and lead cross-functional execution through integration milestones.
• Technical tradeoff studies: Lead tradeoffs of performance, reliability, safety, cost, manufacturability, and document decisions, assumptions, and risks.
• Verification strategy in R&D: Define verification intent early (what “works” means), build coverage plans, and ensure prototypes generate evidence—not just demos.
• Validation strategy for end use: Assist with Validation development and help establish plans that relate to User Needs.  Interface with Application teams and Early Adopters in validating their workflows.
• Complex debugging & Root Cause Analysis: Drive root-cause across subsystems; implement corrective actions and regression prevention (design changes, test additions, process updates).
• Design review leadership: Lead system-level design reviews and readiness gates around architecture, integration readiness and verification readiness.
• Standards & mentorship: Create templates/best practices and mentor other systems engineers and tech leads.
• Partner with operations early: Influence DFM/DFT and serviceability decisions early enough to avoid late redesign.  Assist with production test plans and production workflows.
• Vendor management: Work directly with vendors to drive technology, understand design needs, and verify 3rd party integrated technology.
• Partner with Commercial/Sales: Stay abreast of competitive technologies, Win/Loss reports and overall customer needs to help define future developments for the business.

Education and Experience:

• Advanced degree (Masters or PhD preferred) in Bioengineering, Chemistry, Biology, or a related field.
• 15+ years of Industry experience with 10+ years in the biopharma, biotech, or life science field.
• Significant experience architecting and integrating complex R&D systems (multi-disciplinary: hardware + software/controls + test).
• Strong track record of leading cross-functional technical decisions and delivering integrated prototypes that meet defined acceptance criteria.
• Expert ability to write concise system requirements and define interfaces that reduce integration churn.
• Deep hands-on troubleshooting capability in lab environments with instrumentation, data-driven debugging, and structured RCA.
• Broad experience with software, writing scripts (Python) and using CAD tools to evaluate mechanical and electrical designs.
• Involved or leading multiple products and design releases to Manufacturing using both internal and external Contract Manufacturers.

Preferred Skills:

• Experience with ambiguity-heavy programs: rapid prototyping, evolving requirements, and parallel exploration.
• Comfort with requirements/configuration discipline without over-bureaucratizing early-stage R&D.
• You’re excited to work in a small, cross-functional team in a fast-paced environment; rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it takes to get the job done.
• You consider your ability to organize and plan as one of your greatest strengths.
• You have strong analytical skills with the ability to create data-driven technical solutions and proposals.
• You are an excellent communicator, self-motivating, work well independently and with others, and have strong emotional intelligence.
• You’re an adept collaborator and able to build relationships with external and internal stakeholders that enable productive relationships.

Location & Schedule: 

• This position based in our office located in South San Francisco and is required to be onsite 5 days a week. 

Base Salary Range:

• Culture Biosciences's compensation package includes market competitive salary, equity for all full time roles, and great benefits. Our expected base salary range for this role is: $165,000 to 260,000. We are hiring for multiple levels and backgrounds so final offers may vary within the range provided based on experience, expertise, and other factors.

Benefits:

• Competitive salary and equity compensation
• Medical, Dental, Vision, and Life insurance
• Medical and Dependent Care FSA (prorated based on start-date)
• 401(k) plan with company match
• Responsible Time Off (non-accrual based) policy, 11 paid company holidays and a week-long winter break
• 12 weeks of parental leave at full salary

Culture Biosciences provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants. We seek to build a company that promotes inclusion and expands the diversity of our industry as a whole. We encourage people with identities underrepresented in biotech and technology to apply.