Member of Technical Staff, Senior Full-Stack Engineer (Backend-Focused)

Recruiting From Scratch • San Francisco, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

The company is building an AI scientist to accelerate scientific discovery, initially focused on pharmaceutical research and medicine. Its platform runs hundreds of research tasks in parallel, helping scientists explore complex questions through coordinated workflows. The company is backed by approximately $70 million in seed funding and is working toward full deployments with major pharmaceutical companies.

The Senior Full-Stack Engineer will join a small engineering team and take ownership of backend-heavy features while contributing across the stack. The role focuses on building reliable, scalable Python backend services, APIs, databases, and data pipelines that power AI agents and scientific research workflows. The engineer will own features from design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation, and collaborate closely with scientists, researchers, product teams, and forward-deployed engineers.

The role is full-time and hybrid, with three days per week in the office, Tuesday through Thursday; Monday and Friday are flexible. San Francisco Bay Area is preferred, with New York City and Greater Boston also listed as eligible locations. The position is aimed at candidates with 3–10 years of software engineering experience, ideally 5–8 years for a senior-level candidate. Compensation is $175,000–$240,000 base salary plus competitive equity. The employer is open to eligible visa transfers, including OPT and H-1B transfers.

Requirements

• 3–10 years of professional software engineering experience, ideally within the 5–8-year range for a senior-level candidate.
• Strong hands-on backend or full-stack engineering skills, with a clear backend focus.
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience with JavaScript and/or TypeScript.
• Experience designing and consuming scalable APIs, including REST or comparable API architectures.
• Experience building and operating production software.
• Understanding of system architecture, data modeling, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience taking features from initial concept through implementation and deployment.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work through ambiguous technical requirements.
• Experience working in a fast-moving product or startup environment.
• Willingness to work in a hybrid arrangement, with three days per week in the office.

Nice To Haves

• Experience at strong engineering organizations or technically demanding startups.
• Experience at AI-native companies or companies building AI-powered products.
• Experience building backend systems for complex data-intensive applications.
• Experience working with APIs, databases, and distributed systems at scale.
• Experience with Python frameworks such as FastAPI.
• Experience building frontend functionality with React or Next.js.
• Experience with production infrastructure, CI/CD, monitoring, and observability.
• Experience collaborating with research, product, or customer-facing engineering teams.
• Experience supporting enterprise customers or scaling a product toward large deployments.
• A consistent employment history demonstrating ownership and progression.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and maintain Python backend services, APIs, databases, and data pipelines that power AI agents and scientific research workflows.
• Own features from initial design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation.
• Contribute to frontend functionality in collaboration with design and frontend teammates while maintaining a strong backend focus.
• Design and implement reliable APIs and services for complex research workflows and enterprise deployments.
• Develop backend capabilities that enable AI agents to run research tasks and support scientific discovery.
• Partner with research, forward-deployed, and product teams to ship AI-driven features.
• Improve platform reliability by adding monitoring, observability, automated testing, and other safeguards.
• Help ensure the platform is reliable and production-ready as major pharmaceutical customers come on board.
• Contribute to system design, data modeling, infrastructure, and API architecture decisions.
• Work independently on meaningful engineering problems within a small team and take responsibility for delivering outcomes.

Benefits

• Competitive equity.
• 100% of health insurance premiums covered for employees and their families.
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Potential relocation bonus of $10,000–$15,000; availability should be confirmed with the hiring team.
• Opportunity to own backend-heavy features and contribute directly to the AI scientist platform.
• Opportunity to work closely with researchers on technology designed to accelerate scientific discovery.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed