Application Requirements
Before you apply, please answer the three questions below along with your resume. We read every response, so skip the generic answers, we're looking for specifics from your own experience.
1. This role involves following exact procedures with zero room for shortcuts. Describe a time you caught a mistake in your own work before anyone else noticed it, and what you did about it.
2. This job means processing dozens or hundreds of similar samples a day, often the same steps over and over. What's a past job or task where you had to do repetitive, precise work at high volume, and how did you stay accurate as the day went on?
3. We ask every applicant to answer the following in 3-5 sentences, written in their own words based on their own experience, and to close with the word "Confirmed" as a sign you've read the full instructions : why does Light Labs' actives testing work specifically, not lab work in general, interest you?
Please email to [email protected] with the subject line being your favorite element + Laboratory Technician Application.
Role Overview:
We are hiring a Laboratory Technician to join our chemistry team in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In this role, you will play a central part in verifying active ingredient content in dietary supplements—ensuring the vitamins, amino acids, and key compounds declared on brand labels are accurate and reliable.
While this position doesn't involve instrument operation or method development, it drives the foundation of our lab operations. Your priority will be keeping the front end running smoothly—handling sample intake, labeling, prep, and staging so our team can analyze active ingredients seamlessly. We operate as a fast-moving startup, so flexibility is key as our processes evolve quickly.
This role reports to the Principal Chemists and works closely with the rest of the team in person. It's full-time, with competitive pay, and benefits.
Responsibilities:
- Perform sample intake and ensure proper documentation and labeling
- Prepare samples for actives testing following standard operating procedures
- Get samples ready for analysis across vitamins, amino acids, and other actives
- Keep sample chain of custody and records accurate and up to date
- Maintain a clean, organized, and safe work environment
- Support analysts by flagging issues with samples before they reach the instruments
- Collaborate with the team to keep workflow efficient and projects moving on schedule
- Assist with inventory management and ordering of laboratory supplies
Qualifications:
- BS, AB, and/or technical work experience in a relevant field (e.g., Chemistry, Biology, Medical, etc.)
- 2+ years of experience in a high-throughput laboratory setting is a major advantage
- Proficiency in sample preparation techniques and instrument maintenance
- Experience with LIMS and QMS programs
- Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
- Excellent attention to detail and organizational abilities
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team
- Strong communication skills, both written and verbal
Benefits:
- Competitive salary
- Health, dental, and vision insurance
- Paid time off and holidays
- Professional development opportunities
We’re also setting the new standard for compensation and coverage in lab testing. Every employee gets a competitive salary and excellent employee benefits. We offer excellent full-time employee benefits including health, dental, and vision insurance, paid holidays and vacation, and professional development opportunities. Our goal is to have a small team of founder-minded professionals aligned with our mission to bring transparency to our food system.
Who We Are
Light Labs is building the modern platform for lab testing, starting with consumer goods brands. We help companies test more cheaply, quickly, and enable them to use lab results to automate regulatory compliance and grow revenue.
We believe consumers deserve to know the purity and accuracy of every product that affects their families’ health. Improving our food system starts with increasing transparency and creating a more informed customer. Not only are we building a lab that makes testing faster, cheaper, and easier, but also the infrastructure that allows brands to:
- Market and highlight their lab results by making it easy to push lab data directly to product display pages. Here, brands will highlight what’s in their product (active ingredients + they meet their claims) and what’s not in their product (heavy metals, environmental toxins, PFAs, etc)
- Automatically comply with regulations like Prop 65, CA AB 899, Amazon testing requirements, etc.
By integrating the full experience – from testing to the data sharing with customers – we’re building a more efficient and streamlined process. Brands can now differentiate themselves and become the no-brainer choice in their category through testing and great transparency.
We’re a team of experienced founders that have raised $12M from top VCs (8VC and Valor), with top CPG founders and strategics also coming into the round. Whether you’re lab tech, engineer, sales, marketing, or customer support, you’ll have a seat at the table as we work to increase transparency in the food system.
Our Mission
Almost everything people consume is becoming increasingly toxic (and bereft of nutrition) which leads to massive health dysfunction while simultaneously destroying our planet. No one knows about it because you can’t see, taste, smell, or quantify the problem:
- Cinnamon Apple Puree pouches, marketed for children and labeled as preservative-free, kosher, and gluten-free, contained lead levels 200 times greater than the FDA’s proposed guidelines
- Over 1300 chemicals are banned in cosmetics in the EU, while only 11 are in the United States
- The US also allows thousands of food additives which are banned in other countries
- A study of 168 baby foods revealed that 95% contained at least one heavy metal (arsenic, lead, mercury, cadmium), with a quarter containing all four
- Seven out eight samples of kale contained ‘disturbing’ levels of PFAs, with organic kale containing higher levels of the toxic compounds
Today, even if consumer brands or manufacturers wanted to test for purity of their products, the experience is slow, cumbersome, expensive, and nearly impossible to interpret or share the lab results unless you have a PhD in the area you’re testing for.
Because there is no feedback loop or standardized transparency that brands offer, there is no consumer pressure on change of practices and sourcing. If people knew what was in their food, they’d be shocked. They would shop differently.
Our mission is to bring this transparency to the food system. Allow customers to buy products and brands that are free of toxic ingredients. Transparency is the first step in creating demand for cleaner products, and ultimately a cleaner supply chain.
Pay: $50,000.00 - $55,000.00 per year
Benefits:
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person