Sun, Engineer III at Nautilus, comes to us with a background in chemical engineering. He is the type of person who is critical to developing a complex platform like ours because he is committed to taking the full picture into account, even if that picture isn’t always visible or tangible. He derives much of his approach to work from his religious faith and points to a passage from the bible, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” as an inspiration in life. This quote applies to his work at Nautilus in the sense that his faith in the potential of the proteomics revolution, even if that revolution is not quite here yet, is a major motivator for his work.
Why did you choose to work in biotech coming from a background in chemical engineering?
While a lot of people might think about things like plastics as the products of chemical engineering, there is a ton of chemical engineering that goes into creating new biotechnologies. From the processes we use to prepare proteins for deposition on our platform, to the surface chemistry of our flow cells, and beyond, there is a lot to engineer and a lot to learn in this groundbreaking area. I’m very excited to be involved in developing a new platform and learning from people working on diverse facets of it.
In a broader sense, biotech startups work a bit differently than more traditional tech. There are long lead times as we conduct research and develop our products. As part of this, we must think over long time scales and appreciate the big picture as we make incremental progress over years. I’m motivated by both:
- The big picture – doing something that’s never been done before in terms of accessibly and comprehensively measuring the proteome.
and
- Short term challenges – E.g. choosing between a myriad of possible designs to get our product to work consistently and reliably.
There are many possible directions to take product development and the potential uncertainty surrounding them can be daunting. However, I’m motivated by navigating uncertainty and advocating for the best solutions.
How does the need to think about Nautilus’ long-term goals help you in your day-to-day work?
Well, there’s the obvious answer that it’s fulfilling to work on a platform with the potential to lead to cures for intractable diseases. More practically speaking though, our long-term goals guide our decision making every day.
For instance, it’s very important to ensure the platform can accept many kinds of biological samples. In testing different platform configurations, we must have a concrete idea of what those samples will be and how they’ll interact with the chemistry of the system. We must foresee and avoid issues associated with the samples and make decisions while always:
- Improving overall platform reliability and performance
- Troubleshooting and doing root cause analysis for any issues
- Keeping in mind the needs of internal and external users
In addition, I previously worked at a genomics startup where our engineering goals were focused on making known processes better as opposed to developing entirely new ones. That kind of optimization is and always will be important, but it’s much more exciting to work in proteomics where we’re breaking new ground.
What’s your favorite thing about working at Nautilus?
As you’ve probably noticed, I value being able to see and understand the bigger picture. I’m also very keen on developing my cross-functional skills. In my personal life, this takes the form of organizing hundred- or even thousand-person events at my church complete with invited speakers, food, and a variety of activities. At Nautilus, this means working with people across departments to incorporate their needs into the design of the platform and effectively communicating about necessary changes or solutions. I enjoy working across teams and advocating with people on those teams. I also appreciate that I get to develop this cross-functional mentality under managers who are supportive of my independent growth while providing enough structure to keep me on track.
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