Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, Physical Sciences (Level Flexible)

Lila Sciences•Cambridge, MA

25d•$192,000 - $256,000

About The Position

We're seeking extraordinarily talented Forward Deployed Engineers across Engineer, Senior Engineer, and Lead Engineer levels to join our growing team. Our FDEs are high-performing generalists with a broad set of skills, in addition to depth in one or more focus areas. This FDE, Physical Sciences role requires experience in chemistry and materials science in an industrial manufacturing setting. As an FDE, you'll embed directly with our internal biotech and materials science teams as well as external customers, living their problems and rapidly building solutions that transform their research capabilities. You'll leverage our AI and software platform tools while developing bespoke features that address each customer's unique challenges. This isn't traditional software development—it's high-velocity, AI-fueled, high-impact engineering where you'll ship production code in days, not months.

Requirements

Domain expertise in chemistry, materials science, or related field
Outstanding communication skills—you'll interface directly with both executives and the manufacturing line
Experience with data engineering, ETL pipelines, and working with complex/messy datasets
Strong full-stack development skills with the ability to work across backend, frontend, and data layers
Exceptional problem-solving abilities and comfort with ambiguous requirements
Knack for product discovery and ability to pass requirements back to the platform
Willingness to travel to customer sites for frequent and extended deployments

Nice To Haves

Previous customer-facing or consulting experience
Depth in controls engineering and machine learning
Experience with scientific computing libraries (NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, RDKit)
Familiarity with ML/AI implementation and deployment
Familiarity with modern web technologies (TypeScript, React)

Responsibilities

Developing, wrapping, and adapting domain-specific tools for data analysis, process optimization, molecular modeling, and more
Deploying custom, agentic scientific workflows that integrate with industrial instruments (PLCs, control software) and data systems (ERP, MES, SCADA)
Building real-time data pipelines that transform messy scientific data into actionable insights
Creating intuitive interfaces that make complex AI/ML capabilities accessible to scientists
Architecting solutions that scale from proof-of-concept to enterprise-wide deployment

Benefits

We expect the base salary for this role to fall between $192,000–$256,000 USD per year, along with bonus potential and generous early equity.
The final offer will reflect your unique background, expertise, and impact.
Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

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