Scientist II/Senior Operations Research, Robotics jobs in United States
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Lila Sciences · 19 hours ago

Scientist II/Senior Operations Research, Robotics

positionCambridge, MA
timeFull-time
remoteHybrid
senioritySenior Level
money$228K/yr - $358K/yr

Lila Sciences is the world’s first scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous lab for life, chemistry, and materials science. The role involves building and leading the algorithm development team to orchestrate autonomous laboratories and deliver logic for dynamic scheduling and dispatching plans. The position requires collaboration with robotics, software, and leadership to enable fully autonomous workflows for scientific discovery.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)Foundational AILife ScienceSoftware
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H1B Sponsor Likelynote

Responsibilities

Formulate the strategies for inter-connected optimization problems, defining how task allocation, scheduling, and dynamic routing interact under uncertainty in high-throughput automated laboratories
Lead the hiring, mentorship, and technical direction for the orchestration algorithms team
Design custom heuristics, policies, and meta-heuristics to handle NP-hard challenges in real-time
Create simulations and standards used to model diverse lab scenarios, benchmark approaches, and identify bottlenecks before deployment
Partner with robotics and software teams to ensure optimization models are successfully integrated into the real-world autonomous stack

Qualification

Discrete optimizationAlgorithm developmentSchedulingRoutingSoftware developmentMILP/CP solversCross-functional communicationTechnical project managementTeam leadership

Required

Ph.D. or M.S. in Operations Research, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering, a related field, or equivalent experience
Proven track record of developing and implementing algorithms that schedule/plan/route for real physical systems
Deep expertise in discrete optimization, for example in mixed-integer programming (MIP), constraint programming (CP), network flow, etc
Ability to model complex temporal constraints and dependencies in dynamic environments
Ability to work, communicate, and deliver cross-functionally on projects with evolving scope
Strong software development skills, with experience deploying optimization logic into production environments
Familiarity using a variety of commercial or open-source MILP/CP/hueristic solvers (e.g., Gurobi, CPLEX, Google OR-Tools, Hexaly, cuOpt, etc..)

Preferred

Management experience leading small teams of scientists and managing complex technical projects
Experience hiring into technical roles and establishing culture
Experience developing solvers or benchmarking algorithms
Strong publication record in optimization algorithms

Benefits

Bonus potential
Generous early equity

Company

Lila Sciences

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Lila Sciences creates a scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous labs for life sciences, chemistry, and materials science. It is a sub-organization of Flagship Pioneering.
dateFounded in 2023
location
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
people-size201-500 employees
web-link
https://www.lila.ai

H1B Sponsorship

Lila Sciences has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (8)

Funding

Current Stage
Growth Stage
Total Funding
$550.67M
Key Investors
ARIANVenturesFlagship Pioneering
2026-01-20Grant· $0.67M
2025-10-14Series A· $115M
2025-09-14Series A· $235M

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Company data provided by crunchbase