AI Automation & Systems Engineer

Who we are

OHR builds critical chemicals, from rocket grade fuels to rare-earth extractants, without petroleum. We use biological intelligence and primordial chemistry to create carbon chains from the atom up, eliminating the environmental and geopolitical risks of oil and its refining.

OHR is a programmable manufacturing platform designed for industrial supply chains where purity, resilience, and domestic capacity matter. We’ve already demonstrated key technical milestones across our initial product suite and are now focused on scaling toward pilot production and real-world deployment.

We already use AI fairy dust across R&D, enzyme optimization, technoeconomic modeling, and process design. However, we operate in an industry where compliance, logistics, and documentation are highly regulated and still run on manual processes and archaic systems. We've set that as our next leverage point as we move from breakthrough chemistry to manufacturing at scale.

The Role

We’re hiring an AI Automation & Systems Engineer to build internal tools and AI-assisted systems that replace manual, error-prone workflows with reliable, auditable automation. Reporting to the Head of Product Strategy, your initial mandate will be to streamline laboratory data management, accelerate workflows using data, and automate complex, document-heavy processes. This is a remote-friendly role, with a preference for candidates located near our offices and laboratories in Washington, California, and Colorado.Your first mandate includes workflows like:

• Connecting laboratory data to AI tools to accelerate pathway discovery and intellectual property filings
• Automating hazardous materials compliance review, procurement, and shipment
• Improving documentation for chemicals and standards/specifications (find-and-extract information, automate form filings)
• Building tools to facilitate cross-border logistics and customs workflows

This is not an AI research role. It’s a systems-building role, where LLMs are one tool among many. You will work directly with the CTO and operations, R&D, and commercial teams to identify bottlenecks, design robust automation, and deploy systems that save time and reduce risk.

What you'll do

• Design and build internal automation tools for regulated, document-heavy workflows
• Translate messy real-world processes into deterministic, auditable systems
• Use LLMs for extraction, normalization, and assistance, not unchecked decision-making
• Build human-in-the-loop systems with clear review, escalation, and logging
• Integrate with existing tools (email, document storage, APIs, portals, spreadsheets)
• Own systems end-to-end: architecture, implementation, deployment, and iteration
• Establish internal standards for quality, audit, security, access control, and data isolation

What you won't do

• Build flashy demos with no production path
• Train foundation models from scratch
• Ship autonomous systems that make unsupervised regulatory decisions
• Handwave reliability, security, or edge cases

Who you are

You’re the kind of engineer who sees a messy workflow and immediately starts mapping the system underneath it. You love eliminating manual work, automating the boring parts, and shipping tools that make teams faster and safer. You likely have:

• A degree in computer science, engineering, or related and 3+ years of experience
• Experience integrating APIs and automating workflows across multiple systems
• Comfort working with PDFs, forms, OCR, and messy real-world data
• Practical experience using LLMs in production systems
• Experience using low-code automation tools like Zapier, n8n, Make, and others
• Experience developing agentic workflows with code or with tools like Crew AI

Strong plus:

• Experience in regulated industries (logistics, healthcare, fintech, govtech, energy)
• Built internal tools or platforms used by non-technical teams
• Experience with compliance, documentation, or auditability
• Familiarity with security, permissions, and sensitive data handling

What success looks like:

After 3 months:

• One painful internal workflow is meaningfully automated and in use
• Documentation time is reduced by hours or days per cycle
• Humans trust the system because it’s transparent and reliable

After 6–12 months:

• Multiple workflows automated across compliance and logistics, and intellectual property
• Clear internal playbook for building safe, AI-assisted systems
• Reduced reliance on external contractors for core automation

Why join:

OHR is building the future of critical chemicals, we’re doing deeply technical work with high standards, low ego, and a bias toward shipping. This is a foundational role with real ownership and leverage: you’ll work directly with the CEO and decision-makers, solve problems where automation materially reduces risk and unlocks speed, and help build systems that could define a new category in regulated chemical manufacturing. We offer competitive compensation and meaningful equi