At the Ellison Institute of Technology (EIT), we're on a mission to translate scientific discovery into real world impact. We bring together visionary scientists, technologists, engineers, researchers, educators and innovators to tackle humanity's greatest challenges in four transformative areas:

• Health, Medical Science & Generative Biology
• Food Security & Sustainable Agriculture
• Climate Change & Managing CO₂
• Artificial Intelligence & Robotics

This is ambitious work - work that demands curiosity, courage, and a relentless drive to make a difference. At EIT, you'll join a community built on excellence, innovation, tenacity, trust, and collaboration, where bold ideas become real-world breakthroughs. Together, we push boundaries, embrace complexity, and create solutions to scale ideas from lab to society. Explore more at www.eit.org.

Welcome to the Pathogen Project: Within this ecosystem, the Pathogen Mission exemplifies EIT's commitment to transformative science. It aims to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases by leveraging whole genome sequencing (WGS)-based metagenomic and pathogen-specific analytical tools. This remit includes the development of a decentralised, sample-to-answer sequencing diagnostic platform for infectious diseases, enabling rapid and accurate analysis of patient samples without prior assumptions. Supported by Oracle Inc.'s cloud-computing scale and security infrastructure, the Pathogen Mission is progressing towards certified diagnostic products for deployment in laboratories, hospitals, and public health organisations worldwide.

Your Role: At EIT we are seeking an experienced and detail orientated R&D Systems Engineer - Instrumentation & Data to help develop next-generation diagnostic technology. In this role, you'll work alongside experts in microfluidics, microbiology, electronics and firmware to design, build and iterate prototype instrumentation for a point-of-care device capable of metagenomic sequencing through a microfluidic cartridge interface.

You will take a hands-on role in designing experiments, collecting and analysing performance data from prototype systems, and supporting data-driven engineering improvements within a collaborative R&D environment with evolving challenges. This position sits at the intersection of hardware, embedded control and data analysis. You will contribute directly to the development of decentralised diagnostic systems aimed at improving infectious disease detection in hospitals and public health settings worldwide.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design and execute structured experiments to evaluate performance of cartridge-based modules and prototype instrumentation
• Collect, analyse and interpret experimental data to identify performance trends, variability sources and failure modes
• Develop analysis scripts and tools (e.g. Python-based) to process, visualise and report experimental results

Requirements Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience in instrumentation development, experimental engineering, applied systems engineering or similar R&D environments (industry or advanced academic research experience considered)
• Demonstrated experience designing and executing structured experimental investigations
• Proficiency in data analysis and scripting (e.g. Python, MATLAB or similar)

We recognise that candidates may not meet every listed criterion. If your experience aligns with most of the requirements and you are motivated by the mission, we encourage you to apply. Desirable Knowledge, Skills and Experience:

• Experience working with laboratory instrumentation, medical devices or scientific equipment
• Familiarity with signal processing or sensor calibration techniques
• Exposure to actuator-based instrumentation (e.g. pumps, valves, motors)
• Basic understanding of contamination control considerations in laboratory equipment
• Experience contributing to early-stage product development (concept → prototype → refinement)

Key Attributes:

• Curious and analytical, committed to rigorous, evidence-based decision-making
• Comfortable working in fast-moving, experimental environments with evolving requirements
• Detail-oriented and methodical in experimental planning and documentation
• Comfortable translating experimental insight into practical implementation, able to bridge the gap between lab experimentation and engineering implementation
• Clear communicator, able to explain technical findings to multidisciplinary teams
• Takes initiative and works effectively both independently and as part of a team to highlight performance improvement opportunities

Benefits Our Benefits:

• Salary: Competitive + travel allowance + bonus
• Enhanced holiday pay
• Pension
• Life Assurance
• Income Protection
• Private Medical Insurance
• Hospital Cash Plan
• Therapy Services
• Perk Box
• Electric Car Scheme

Working Together - What It Involves:

• You must have the right to work permanently in the UK with a willingness to travel as necessary. In certain cases, we can consider sponsorship, and this will be assessed on a case-by-case basis
• You will live in, or within easy commuting distance of, Oxford (or be willing to relocate)