
Our mission is to make biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo is constructing, editing, and redesigning the living world in order to answer the globe’s growing challenges in health, energy, food, materials, and more. Our bioengineers make use of an in-house automated foundry for designing and building new organisms.
Team: Automation Systems Team
Location: Boston, MA
Hiring Manager: Yangdy Chen and Bradley Spillert
We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled Software Engineer III to join our core engineering team working on Catalyst, our software stack that runs our robotic lab systems. In this role, you will be responsible for the design, development, integration testing, and field support of software drivers for our cutting-edge autonomous labs.
The ideal candidate possesses a solid background in programming reliable physical or real-time systems. You excel at cross-functional collaboration, ensuring our drivers meet the exacting standards of the scientific community while providing rapid response to customer issues.
To learn more about automation engineering at Ginkgo, take a look at our website.
This job requires occasional travel to Ginkgo's office in Boston, MA and customer sites as needed.
Driver Development & Implementation (70%)
Integration & Validation (20%)
Field Support & Diagnostics (10%)
We do not expect that any one candidate will have all of the following capabilities - each is independently a preferred or “nice-to-have” capability.
The base salary range for this role is $112,200–$159,600. Actual pay within this range will depend on a candidate's skills, expertise, and experience. We also offer company stock awards, a comprehensive benefits package including medical, dental & vision coverage, health spending accounts, voluntary benefits, leave of absence policies, 401(k) program with employer contribution, 8 paid holidays in addition to a full-week winter shutdown and unlimited Paid Time Off policy.
Ginkgo has implemented a return to office policy effective October 1, 2025 with required in-office days 5x per week. Some teams may require to be onsite 4-5 days per week and this will be discussed as part of the interview process. This policy applies to all employees who live within 50 miles of Ginkgo’s offices in Boston, MA and Emeryville, CA.
It is the policy of Ginkgo Bioworks to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees, employment applicants, and EOE disability/vet.
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At Ginkgo, we use biology to grow the future. Companies across industries leverage our platform to design, develop, and optimize products for a breadth of commercial applications. We help our partners grow key ingredients for vaccines, crops that rely less on fossil fuel-based fertilizers, plant-based meat that tastes like the real thing, materials for the next generation of circular fashion, and so much more. We know our unique experiences, ideas, and perspectives are essential to our success and enable us to make biology easier to engineer and ensure equitable distribution of the benefits of our platform. As such, we seek to to grow an inclusive culture and diverse workforce. Let's make biology easier to engineer and join our team.