Senior Software Engineer, TuneLab

Eli Lilly and Company • San Francisco, CA

6d

About The Position

Lilly TuneLab provides biotech companies access to drug-discovery AI and machine-learning models trained on Lilly research data. The Senior Software Engineer will help turn existing models, point solutions, and internal infrastructure into a coherent, usable SaaS product that biotech customers can access and build with. Federated learning is a meaningful part of the work, enabling customers to use and train Lilly’s models without their data leaving their environments.

As an early engineer on a small team, you will own product surfaces and features end-to-end, influence architecture and engineering practices, and work closely with product, design, data science, a Staff Software Engineer, and the Engineering Manager. The role involves building the application layer around Lilly’s AI models, contributing directly to code and releases, mentoring teammates, and navigating enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements. You will report to the TuneLab Engineering Manager.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
• At least 5 years of software engineering experience.
• A track record of shipping software used and relied on by real customers.
• Experience as a senior engineer on a product team, ideally a small team.
• Authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis; Lilly will not sponsor or support work authorization or visas for this role.
• Strong full-stack fundamentals, including the ability to own a feature from database schema through user interface.
• Experience with API design and integrations.
• Ability to design and build polished user interfaces, including thoughtful empty and error states.
• Cloud experience and familiarity with modern deployment practices.
• Enough AI/ML familiarity to make informed integration decisions.
• Ability to learn the rationale behind requests and evaluate solutions rather than simply following momentum.
• Experience building software for external customers who paid for and relied on it.
• Ability to simplify complex backend capabilities into usable product experiences.
• Product-oriented judgment, including the ability to clarify the problem being solved and communicate with product managers.
• Ability to work in small teams with an incompletely defined roadmap, unblock yourself, and take broad ownership.
• Clear communication with technical and non-technical audiences, sound judgment, low ego, and high standards.

Nice To Haves

• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered features, including practical understanding of reliability, evaluations, context management, and when not to use AI.
• Comfort with AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor and Claude Code.
• Experience in life sciences, pharma, or health tech.
• Background building B2B SaaS products.
• Prior startup experience or experience as an early engineer in an internal startup within a larger company.

Responsibilities

• Own product surfaces end-to-end across frontend, backend, data, and integrations.
• Build the application layer that turns Lilly’s AI models into reliable, cohesive workflows for biotech customers.
• Take ambiguous requirements, evaluate tradeoffs, and deliver working features.
• Contribute directly to code, code review, testing, release processes, and on-call responsibilities.
• Help establish and uphold engineering standards.
• Mentor other engineers and help improve their work.
• Partner with product management and design, raising concerns about specifications or scope early.
• Help interview engineers as the team grows.
• Identify and address unowned work or clearly flag it to the team.
• Navigate enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements while maintaining development progress.
• Work with Lilly IT and internal platform teams to use existing capabilities where appropriate.
• Participate in customer conversations when useful and communicate effectively with technical counterparts.

Benefits

• Company bonus eligibility for full-time equivalent employees, depending in part on company and individual performance.
• Eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k).
• Pension.
• Vacation benefits.
• Eligibility for medical, dental, vision, and prescription drug benefits.
• Flexible benefits, including healthcare and/or dependent day-care flexible spending accounts.
• Life insurance and death benefits.
• Certain time-off and leave-of-absence benefits.
• Well-being benefits, including an employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior