Meet Team Science

Sometimes when you’re least expecting it, you’ll find something that makes your personal and professional motivations converge into one. That’s how I felt when I joined Benchling in 2020. The stars aligned.

After two decades of building People teams, I was doing some introspection about how I spend my time — specifically, reflecting on how to make good choices with the limited time we have. My family has been heavily impacted by cancer, and I had recently lost my mom. 

Once I met Benchling’s co-founders, Saji and Ashu, it became abundantly clear that I wanted to spend my time with them and their team, helping to speed up scientific discovery. I’ve always had an abiding interest in science — from my pre-med studies in college and clinical research experience after that, all the way to my hope, as a parent, for my daughter to experience a brighter future. Biotech companies across pharma, agriculture, and other industries are developing medicines, foods, fuels, and materials that will drastically improve our lives and our planet. And by bringing modern software to modern science, Benchling is on a mission to unlock the power of biotechnology.

The mission struck a chord immediately, but what resonated most about Benchling turned out to be the people. We’ve brought together the best talent at the intersection of tech and science. Benchlings have such diverse backgrounds, skills, and experiences. Many teammates are former scientists and academics who left the lab to help reimagine their field. Others are technologists and business operators, eager to harness their enterprise tech experience to join the biotech revolution. When you attract deeply curious and collaborative people and unite them around a mission to serve scientists addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, it’s powerful.

We decided to call that powerful combination “Team Science.” We share a conviction about the promise and potential of science, as well as the teamwork required every step of the way. Pursuing our mission is a team sport — that’s why you’ll find cross-functional collaboration everywhere you turn within Benchling. It’s also why we consider our customers part of Team Science. They’re using our R&D Cloud to do “team science” so the more that we can help them, the more we can push science forward together.

Today, we’re proud to celebrate Team Science by unveiling our new Careers page, where you can hear from Benchlings about why they joined and what Team Science means to them:

We are also launching a new Life at Benchling page to showcase our intentional, vibrant culture. The benefits we offer manifest what we value, whether it’s wellbeing and mental health resources, learning and development opportunities, or fun events that build team bonds and community.

If you’re looking to understand what really makes Benchling tick, check out our leadership principles. These guide how we work together, make decisions, and what we look for as we hire:

My favorite leadership principle is “admit mistakes and shortcomings” because it makes it okay to be the authentic human beings we all are. It also recognizes that making mistakes and learning from them is a critical part of the journey, especially when you’re doing something pioneering! Focusing on embracing mistakes as learning opportunities instead of worrying about covering them up creates psychological safety for everyone.

We’re a company that shares and trusts. At our monthly all-hands meetings, our leaders don’t just celebrate wins, they also share what didn’t go well and why, allowing the whole company to benefit from the collective lessons those mistakes teach us. Starting from this place of transparency and trust frees us all to innovate like scientists do — we ask questions, experiment, test, and learn.