​​Mekonos is an innovative biotech startup, building a solution that enables and accelerates precision medicine, synthetic biology & fundamental science.

Our purpose is to make personalized medicine widely accessible through a scalable gene delivery platform.

At Mekonos, we’re building the first-of-its-kind digital cell-engineering platform. Our universal delivery strategy utilizes a scalable silicon chip architecture to deliver molecular cargo into cells ex-vivo at high throughput with exceptional yield.

We are building the future of cell therapies on a chip.

• We are devoted to inclusive creativity that delivers
• We are trusted to be responsibly decisive
• We learn and innovate through successes and mistakes everyday
• We are rigorous about alignment, teamwork, orchestration and connection

• 100% paid medical, dental and vision insurance, for employees and their dependents
• Medical insurance (PPO, HMO and HDHP plans)
• Dental insurance
• Vision insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts
• Health Savings Accounts (with compatible plans)
• Commuter benefits
• Accrued PTO, beginning at 17 days per year (increases in year 2 and year 3 of employment)
• 9 days accrued Sick Leave (for California employees)
• Competitive equity based on your role
• 401k
• Dedicated development budget for all employees

We currently have 34 full-time team members, with an additional five full-time positions projected for this year.

In addition, we have two interns, and will be bringing on another four during the summer.

We have established a structured hiring process to ensure equity and fairness. While this process varies for some roles, most candidates will experience the typical hiring process as outlined below.

1. Phone screen with People Ops or Hiring Manager (~30 - 45 mins)
2. ‘Technical’ Interview led by Hiring Manager, with a panel of 1 - 2 prospective colleagues that the role incumbent will interact with frequently (~45 - 60 mins)
3. ‘Non-Technical’ Interview led by the People Ops, and a panel of 1 - 2 prospective peers (~45 - 60 mins)

At each stage, whether a candidate does or does not move on to the next stage, they will receive an email notification. Our goal is to communicate with pace, empathy, and fairness.

If this has piqued your interest, and you want to learn more about working at Mekonos, please request an introduction or reach out to @nupursinha or @Nova!

As an organization, we have established Objectives & Key results (OKRs) at the company and team levels. Team members have assigned goals based on tasks that fall under Key Results for their teams. Completion of these tasks/goals, along with demonstration of our Values and Leadership Muscles make up the formal annual performance review process. Managers are required to check-in with their team members on a bi-weekly basis at minimum (most meet weekly) utilizing a simple format to have rounded discussions.

We don’t generally have distinguished rules on working hours, but the team tends to start between 8:30 - 9:30 am and leave between 6 - 7pm. You will find folks online outside of this window, depending on the work demands, rules of our shared facilities, as well as how they want to align their day. For most of our team, it is the exception rather than the rule to find people working at night on weekends. We expect urgent work will come up every so often by virtue of being a start-up; however, it is certainly not the long-term expectation.

Our employees are empowered to set boundaries as they need, to establish work-life harmony as it applies to them.

We are an interdisciplinary team of individuals passionate about solving some of the world’s most difficult technical challenges in medicine. A lot of our organization works out of lab spaces, that are currently within shared facilities. In general, we have adopted a hybrid model to allow for flexibility where possible.

We utilize Slack for more conversational-style internal communications. The norm is to use this for quick answers on something simple when an immediate response is needed as well as to share something random, funny, or off-topic.

Email is less conversational, and the primary vehicle for external communications, whether it is submitting business cases or redlining legal documents. It is also used for formal company-wide updates or requests for internal decisions.

We utilize apps such as Google Drive & Notion for collecting asynchronous feedback on draft versions of work plans and group-level deliverables. Responses will generally take longer and the owner needs to set clear expectations and timelines to help peers consider the request in the context of existing priorities.

Of course, we also have meetings, to enable cross-functional collaboration and real-time discussion of more complex topics (including sensitive items. We are building the structural muscle for these, to set agendas in advance, including who leads the meetings, what actions/next steps look like, etc.