Scientific Software Engineer - Full Stack

Arcadia Science•Emeryville, CA

4d•Onsite

About The Position

Arcadia Science is seeking a software engineer to join their team, focusing on building web applications and data infrastructure that bridge the gap between wet-lab and computational scientists. This role involves transforming complex research workflows into intuitive digital experiences. The engineer will collaborate with researchers and product designers, ship internal tools to enhance workflows, and contribute to data infrastructure for exploring and sharing results. A significant part of the role will focus on Arcadia's Foundry division, specifically building the software layer for AutoOpenRaman, an open-source automated Raman spectrometer. This includes developing a scientific user interface for bench scientists and a data pipeline for processing spectral data. The ideal candidate has experience building products from scratch in fast-paced environments, possesses strong product instincts and technical skills, and enjoys working closely with scientists to understand their challenges. While a biology degree is not required, genuine scientific curiosity and a willingness to learn are essential. This is an onsite position at the Emeryville headquarters, fostering close collaboration and grounding the work in scientific needs.

Requirements

Hands-on experience building products from scratch in fast-moving environments, with a track record of shipping software that non-engineers actually depend on
Experience designing and shipping user interfaces for scientific or technical workflows, with genuine care for the non-engineer end user: clean layout, clear state, graceful error handling
Proficiency in Python and TypeScript; comfortable owning both backend services and frontend applications
Experience building data pipelines for scientific data: ingestion, transformation, QC, and structured storage
Ability to work directly with bench scientists to develop deep empathy for their workflows and translate that understanding into software that fits how they actually work
Deep AI literacy: you actively use AI tools in your own development workflow, you have strong opinions about which tools and approaches work, and you understand the architecture of agentic systems well enough to build and maintain them, not just call an API
Demonstrated experience building with AI: using LLMs, agents, or AI-assisted development tools to meaningfully expand what you can ship and maintain

Nice To Haves

Experience building software for scientific instruments or laboratory hardware
Background or coursework in evolutionary biology, molecular biology, or bioinformatics
Contributions to open-source scientific software projects
AI Literacy: You will build and maintain a team of agents requiring more than familiarity with AI tools: you should be current on the state of coding agents and LLM-assisted development, have opinions on which approaches are production-ready, and be able to make architectural decisions about when to build agentic workflows and when not to. We expect you to stay current as the field moves.

Responsibilities

Partner with researchers and product designers to identify high-impact problems, then architect and ship solutions through rapid iteration cycles
Design, develop, and maintain Arcadia's internal product suite using modern web technologies, building for scalability, performance, and a user experience that works for scientists
Build and improve data infrastructure that supports biological research workflows, from ingestion and transformation to exploration and visualization
Design and ship a scientific user interface purpose-built for bench scientists, intuitive sample management, run configuration, live acquisition feedback, and results review.
Build and maintain agentic AI workflows that expand the team's capacity: automating data QC, interpretation, report generation, and other repeatable analytical tasks
Own the full lifecycle of your work: scoping, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and ongoing maintenance