About Biomatter

Biomatter designs enzymes that never existed in nature - proteins that were, until recently, impossible to create. They're already at work in health, food, agriculture, and sustainable manufacturing: companies like BASF, Thermo Fisher, and Kirin build their products on enzymes we designed.

Behind this is our platform, which combines state-of-the-art AI with our own wet laboratory. Algorithms design new proteins, the lab builds and tests them, and every experiment makes the next design better. That's why our team spans software engineers, AI researchers, and scientists at the bench.

The role

Every enzyme we design has to be tested against the reaction it was designed to catalyze. Often there's no published method for the substrate involved, so the assay has to be built from scratch - and then run reproducibly across a lot of variants.

We're building a dedicated analytical team to take that on, and you'd be one of its first hires, reporting to the team's head. Your side of it is chromatography and mass spectrometry: designing and validating the assays that tell us how our enzymes behave, keeping those instruments running and in specification, and supporting the biochemists to generate the data.

It’s a position with real ownership of methods and the instruments, you’ll be setting things up constantly rather than inheriting them – with an experience group head to work through it with.

What you will do

Assay development and analysis

• Design enzyme assays with plate reader, HPLC and mass spectrometry readouts.

• Validate assay performance so it meets project requirements.

• Run enzymatic assays, HPLC and LC-MS analysis in support of project work.

• Document methods and results so that someone else can reproduce them.

Instruments and analytical lab

• Calibrate HPLC and LC-MS systems and keep them in specification.

• Perform in-house preventive maintenance, troubleshoot failures and carry out repairs where practical.

• Specify service contracts, spare parts and consumables, and oversee engineer visits.

• Set the safety practices for the analytical lab, and make sure solvent and chemical waste is handled correctly.

• Maintain documentation on equipment performance and maintenance.

Working with the team

• Write and maintain SOPs for assays and equipment.

• Train colleagues to run HPLC and LC-MS themselves.

• Work with the biochemists to generate the assay data projects need - transferring methods to them or joining project work directly.

What we are looking for

• Master's or PhD degree in chemistry, biochemistry, molecular biology or a related field.

• Two or more years hands-on with high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and mass spectrometry (MS).

• Fundamental knowledge of chemistry: how chemical compounds can be manipulated, separated and detected should be second nature to you.

• Experience developing or substantially adapting an analytical method - not only running established ones.

• Practical troubleshooting of both assays and hardware.

• Organised and dependable in a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment.

• Knowledge of lab safety and chemical handling.

• Excellent written and oral English.

Nice to have

• Method validation experience, or work in a documented or regulated environment (GLP, GMP, ISO).

• Experience with high-throughput screening or lab automation.

• Familiarity with chromatography data systems (Chromeleon, MassHunter, Empower or similar).

• Theoretical or practical knowledge of enzyme kinetics.

• Sample preparation or derivatisation method development.

• Experience training others on analytical instrumentation.

• Comfort with scripting for data analysis, or using AI tools in your work.

What we offer

• Salary: 3000-3700 EUR gross per month, depending on experience, plus private health insurance.

• Working alongside scientists on a platform that has already put AI-designed enzymes into the hands of some of the largest companies in the world.