Software Engineer, Infrastructure

Chai Discovery • San Francisco, CA

35d

About The Position

Chai Discovery builds frontier AI models to design molecules and transform how medicines are made. We are a craft-obsessed team setting out to re-architect drug discovery and save lives. The Chai founding team brought together leading researchers in this space and top silicon valley operators. Our founders led seminal accomplishments at top AI-for-biology programs and labs, co-invented protein language modelling, built state-of-the-art folding algorithms, and sold AI adopted by top-10 pharma companies. We are backed by top-tier investors, including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Dimension, Conviction, Lachy Groom, Amplify, and many more. We are hiring an engineer obsessed with building systems and infrastructure that are as simple as possible while being as flexible and resilient as possible. You will focus on the core systems underpinning our product surface and model-inference workflows, across internal and production deployment environments. You will partner closely with product and research engineering, security operations, and our commercial team. Our ideal candidate knows how to build services that developers love because it makes their lives easier and noticeably increases their productivity. They are familiar with building systems at scale for modern APIs and front-ends as well as AI/ML inference workloads. And they understand the imperatives of building compliant and secure systems for adoption by the world's leading biopharma organizations. After years of foundational R&D, Chai's models are moving beyond protein structure prediction and into real-world therapeutic engineering. This is not a typical role — it’s a chance to push the boundaries of drug discovery by building some of the most advanced AI drug design models ever built, working alongside a craft-obsessed team of micro pessimists and macro-optimists.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or related field.
• 5+ years experience building production systems with proven + modern tooling.
• Have had end-to-end ownership of 24x7 infrastructure observability, alerting and incident response.
• Have been part of 0-to-1 buildouts as well as 1-to-n scale-ups, have the scars to prove it, and bring an always-evolving playbook of best practices and philosophies with you wherever you go.
• Able to explain technical trade-offs to non-engineers and to translate scientific requirements into engineering tasks.
• Track record collaborating with product managers and designers to turn Figma frames into pixel-perfect, accessible UIs.
• Enjoy pair-reviewing code, writing docs, and sharing knowledge with teammates.
• Take ownership of what you build... you are "on call" by default.
• Mission- and purpose-driven; you like the idea of your life's work going to create better cures
• Driven to iterate fast with a bias for shipping—without breaking things
• Question assumptions, with diplomacy.
• Clear communicator and respectful colleague.
• Operate well under pressure and thrive in fast-moving environments.

Benefits

• Frontier technology: work on the technologies that promises to fundamentally change how new therapeutics are created.
• World-class people: work with world-renowned leaders in the AI x Biology ecosystem.
• Velocity and ownership: we move incredibly fast and liberally distribute ownership, which means continuous learning and career growth opportunities are guaranteed.
• Strong culture and mission: we foster a supportive culture that is mission-driven and high-energy.
• Highly competitive compensation: we attract the best talent and compensate them accordingly.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Number of Employees: 1-10 employees