Arc institute

Flow Cytometry Specialist

Palo Alto, CA Full Time

About Arc Institute

The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Arc is an independent research organization founded on the belief that many important research programs will be enabled by new institutional models. Arc operates in partnership with Stanford University, UCSF, and UC Berkeley.

While the prevailing university research model has yielded many tremendous successes, we believe in the importance of institutional experimentation as a way to make progress. These include:

  • Funding: Arc fully funds Core Investigators’ (PIs’) research groups, liberating scientists from the typical constraints of project-based external grants.
  • Technology: Biomedical research has become increasingly dependent on complex tooling. Arc Technology Centers develop, optimize, and deploy rapidly advancing experimental and computational technologies in collaboration with Core Investigators. 
  • Support: Arc aims to provide first-class support—operationally, financially, and scientifically—that will enable scientists to pursue long-term high risk, high reward research that can meaningfully advance progress in disease cures, including neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune dysfunction.
  • Culture: We believe that culture matters enormously in science and that excellence is difficult to sustain. We aim to create a culture that is focused on scientific curiosity, a deep commitment to truth, broad ambition, and selfless collaboration.

Arc has scaled to over 350 people to date. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly in the coming years.

About the position

In this vital role you will have the ability to train and guide others while collaborating with our core labs and tech centers on innovative and impactful experiments that require flow cytometry expertise.

About You

  • You are a skilled and passionate flow cytometry expert who thrives at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and collaborative science.
  • You have a natural ability to translate complex scientific concepts into clear, accessible training materials, and you take pride in empowering laboratory personnel at all levels to work safely and effectively with flow cytometry instrumentation.
  • You bring a strategic mindset to assay development, panel design, and data interpretation, and you are confident leading cross-institute initiatives that push the boundaries of what flow cytometry can achieve.
  • You are a proactive communicator who enjoys sharing knowledge — whether through hands-on demos, internal presentations, or talks at major scientific conferences — and you are excited by the opportunity to shape Arc's reputation as an innovation leader in the field.

In this position you will

  • Develop clear training strategy, overview of training pathways and material and easy access to training
  • Train and assist laboratory personnel with respect to the use of flow cytometry equipment and safety procedures.
  • Provide strategic direction in assay development, panel design, troubleshooting, and data interpretation. Run data analysis and interpretation of data generated at the FACS facility
  • Lead cross-institute initiatives that leverage flow cytometry.
  • Stay at the forefront of advancements in flow cytometry technology, instrumentation, and analytical methodologies. Run benchmarking of relevant technologies and share insights with the Arc community via demos and presentations.
  • Identify emerging opportunities where flow cytometry can unlock new biological insights aligned with Institute goals.
  • Drive scientific discourse through presentations at major conferences, serve as a thought leader in the flow community, and contribute to Arc's reputation as an innovation leader.
  • Increased capacity to operate analytical flow cytometry analyzers & sorters 
  • Backup to maintain and troubleshoot flow cytometry instruments. You must be comfortable performing hands-on troubleshooting and solving basic instrument problems as they arise. 
  • Backup as a shared point of contact with the manufacturer’s technical support and field service engineering teams to coordinate instrument preventative maintenance and repairs as needed.
  • Help with equipment management and recharge program in concert with the Lab Ops team to minimize equipment downtime and maintain equipment service logs.
  • Backup manage access for endusers depending on training requirements.
  • Backup monitor and manage the supply of all commonly required  fluids,  supplies and consumables.
  • Help maintain laboratory safety in BSL2 and BSL2+ environments for everyone that accesses the laboratory & help with risk assessments 

Requirements

  • Doctorate/Masters or BA degree in relevant discipline with a total of 8 or more years of Cytometry experience.
  • Extensive expertise in flow cytometry; strong understanding of cytometry platforms and instrumentation, equipment support, and assay development.
  • Working knowledge of Full Spectrum Flow cytometry. In addition, knowledge of how to integrate flow & imaging cytometry efforts with adjacent single cell technologies (e.g., RNA seq, CRISPR screens, etc) would be preferred.
  • Proficiency in flow cytometry analysis software such as FlowJo, FCS Express, and/or OMIQ.
  • Good documentation practices & scientific conduct as defined by standard operating procedures.
  • Ability to work later hours, as required.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Proven ability to interact with stakeholders to understand program needs, assay specifics, timelines, and data delivery.
  • Experience of leveraging varied AI/ML analytical platforms as they emerge into our industry & work in a team structure with data scientists in synergy.
  • Facs Core management experience a plus.