We are seeking an innovative and highly motivated controls engineer who will contribute significantly to the development of our advanced cell therapy manufacturing platform.
The primary focus of this position will be the design, implementation, and test/verification of control systems that form the core of our hardware platform. You will lead the architecture design and implementation of these hardware platforms, and help work with the software, mechanical and systems teams to bring up and validate new automation systems. This individual will interface across many parts of the company to develop novel products used in the cell therapy and gene therapy world.
Candidates should enjoy working in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, and be prepared to tackle a broad selection of challenges as the company grows.
Responsibilities
- Lead the development of control systems integrating custom and off-the-shelf laboratory instruments and PLC-based control hardware
- Drive component selection, prototyping, bring-up, debugging, documentation, manufacturing and test
- Develop PLC control software using Structured Text and leveraging object oriented programming methodologies
- Develop unit tests and functional tests for PLC code that you write, participate in code reviews, and leverage Git for version control and code management
- Participate in design reviews and provide input to identify issues and drive design choices
- Collaborate with the software team to develop robust, well documented software interfaces to hardware
- Collaborate with external stakeholders including Systems Engineering, Quality, Mechanical Engineering, Process Development, etc. for project planning, requirements development, and architecture development
- Collaborate with external suppliers and contract manufacturers
- Develop test software in Python, C# or other languages to validate subsystems during manufacture
Requirements
- Bachelors or Masters degree in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Software Engineering, Electrical Engineering or equivalent experience is required
- 5+ years industry experience developing control systems for customer-shippable life science instrumentation or comparable equipment 2+ years of experience in medical device design preferred
- Experience as a technical/engineering lead on multiple projects incorporating motion control and basic process control
- Experience with at least one major PLC platform (Siemens TIA Portal, Beckhoff TwinCAT3, B&R) or experience with hardware control using real-time operating systems (RTOS) such as VXWorks, QNX, INtime, etc
- Proficient with IEC 61131-3 based languages with a focus on Structured Text
- Proficient with object-oriented programming and have an understanding of how to apply OOP concepts to control software
- Experience implementing and developing coding standards around industry standard control implementations, for example implementations following the ISA-88 hierarchical model
- Experience reading and interpreting electrical drawings
- Hands on experience with wiring, configuring and troubleshooting electrical and control systems
- Proficient in the design of safety systems following IEC/ISO/RIA standards
- Understanding of the proper integration and usage of safety relays, safety PLCs, light curtains, E-Stops, etc
- Experience with fieldbus technologies such as EtherCAT, Profinet, EtherNet/IP
- Experience with one computer programming language such as Python, C#, Java
- Desire to work in a fast-paced, collaborative start-up environment
- Self-awareness, integrity, authenticity, and a growth mindset
- Proficiency in Python
- Experience integrating and/or programming industrial articulated robots (i.e. Kuka, ABB, Staubli)
- Experience with at least one major HMI software, such as Ignition, Wonderware, WinCC
Nice to Haves
Top Skills
What We Do
Cellares is revolutionizing cell therapy manufacturing. We are developing a one-of-a-kind solution, The Cell Shuttle, to overcome the challenges associated with manufacturing so these life-saving therapies are affordable and widely available to patients who can benefit.
The clinical impact of cell therapy in treating cancer has been proven, but this therapeutic approach has several limitations, especially in manufacturing, leaving extremely sick patients waiting for treatment and desperate for hope.
Since cell therapy is currently produced for a single patient at a time, it is expensive to manufacture, requiring significant time and resources, and is difficult to scale.
Preclinical and clinical scientists, as well as commercial cell therapy manufacturers also lack the options to fully automate their manufacturing process quickly, safely, cost-effectively and at the scale they need.
The Cell Shuttle is an automated and closed end-to-end manufacturing solution that is flexible and scalable, enabling customers to run exact processes specified for their cell therapy. Compared with the current manual manufacturing processes for cell therapy, the Cell Shuttle’s next-generation automated manufacturing solution has 10 times the scalability (meaning 10 times more patient doses can be produced simultaneously), enables a three-fold reduction in process failure rates and will reduce the per-patient manufacturing cost by up to 70 percent for most processes.
