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 online by mid-2027. Our customers range from foundation model labs to global pharma. We are hiring a Head of Functional Genomics to build and lead the functional genomics vertical from scratch. The vertical covers the full pipeline: cell line engineering, perturbation library design, screen execution, and bulk and single-cell sequencing readouts, with the resulting data feeding customer pipelines that include foundation model training for virtual cell models. This is the second scientific vertical we are bringing online: manual development is starting now, and full autonomous execution on workcells is targeted for mid-to-late 2027. You will own the screening menu, scope it against early customer demand, shape the workcells the screens will eventually run on, and build the team that operates the function at scale. You will be the senior functional genomics scientist in the company at hire. 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 functional genomics end-to-end. Day one priorities are the scientific pieces of standing up a vertical from scratch: scoping the priority screening menu against early customer demand, developing and validating those screens manually, setting quality thresholds, and hiring the Principal Scientists, Scientists, and Lab Technicians who will operate the function at scale. The vertical will eventually span cell line engineering across catalogue lines and iPSC-derived models, perturbation library design and production, pooled screen execution, and bulk and single-cell sequencing readouts; the day-1 wedge is one end-to-end workflow through these stages, scoped narrowly to a focused starting subset within each, and you decide what that scope looks like. Two parts of the role are not standard, and they are why this role is so crucial to Substrate’s success. The first is that the functional genomics vertical is being built AI-first from day one. Every screen is designed from scratch for full AI-in-the-loop automation, not retrofitted onto a manual workflow. You do the work by hand first, exactly as you would in a high-end pharma research lab, and then work with Automata’s automation scientists to shape the workcells the screens will eventually run on. You will define the quality thresholds for each transition stage, decide which manual judgement calls have to be re-engineered out, and own the validation that proves equivalence at each step. The second is closed-loop work with foundation model partners. Substrate’s distinctive operating mode is producing structured, machine-readable experimental data fast enough to feed directly into foundation model training. That changes how functional genomics screens get designed: cell line provenance, library composition, perturbation metadata, sequencing QC, and consistency across runs become first-class scientific constraints. You will work directly with model partners on screen co-design, and with our software and intelligence teams o

Head of Functional Genomics

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