Scientific Software Engineer (Lab Integration)

CuspAI; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity in CuspAI

28 days holiday (UK)

Professional development budget

Interdisciplinary teamwork

Impactful work in materials science

Job summary

CuspAI in Cambridge, UK, is seeking a Scientific Software Engineer to connect our AI platform with laboratories worldwide. You will shape the software layer of our closed-loop discovery workflow: agents propose experiments, partner labs execute them, and results feed back into models to guide the next steps.

This role sits between lab automation and production engineering. You will design APIs, build scalable integrations with lab instruments, and ensure secure, reliable data exchange across

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience with lab automation or self-driving labs.
• Strong backend software engineering experience.
• Deep fluency in Python, with typed, well-tested code and API design.

Responsibilities

• Design and build services to connect AI agents with partner labs.
• Develop APIs and data models for bidirectional lab-to-cloud exchange.
• Integrate with lab instruments, robotic platforms, LIMS/ELN systems and scheduling software.
• Ensure reliability at scale: idempotency, retries, queues, monitoring and alerts.
• Onboard new lab partners and accelerate integrations.

Skills

Lab automation

Software engineering

Python

Distributed systems

Security best practices

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Tools

FastAPI

Pydantic

Job description

About CuspAI

CuspAI is the frontier AI company on a mission to solve the breakthrough materials needed to power human progress. While nature took billions of years to perfect molecules, we are harnessing AI to unlock trillion-dollar materials breakthroughs in months, not millennia. Our founding team is the most cited in the world, comprised of world-class researchers in AI, chemistry and engineering.

About CuspAI

CuspAI is the frontier AI company on a mission to solve the breakthrough materials needed to power human progress. While nature took billions of years to perfect molecules, we are harnessing AI to unlock trillion-dollar materials breakthroughs in months, not millennia. Our founding team is the most cited in the world, comprised of world-class researchers in AI, chemistry and engineering.

We are working on some of the hardest and most important challenges including energy, clean water, the future of compute, and carbon capture, and this is just the start of what our 'search engine' for next-generation materials will unlock.

We invite you to be part of a diverse, innovative team at the intersection of AI and materials science, working to create impactful partnerships that drive innovation, scalability, and industry collaboration. This work matters. Your work matters.

We’re on the cusp of the on-demand materials era. Join us.

The Role

We are seeking a Scientific Software Engineer to build and run the systems that connect our AI platform to physical laboratories around the world. Together with the team, you will shape the software layer of our closed-loop discovery workflow: our agents propose experiments, partner labs execute them, and the results feed back into our models to guide the next set of experiments.

This role sits between lab automation and production engineering. You will bring hands‑on experience with scientific or lab automation, and the engineering discipline to make those integrations secure, reliable and scalable across many partners.

You will be part of a small team of materials scientists, ML engineers and software engineers, working closely with each other and with our partner labs. You will help define how our AI platform connects to the physical world and shape the tools and practices that link external partner labs to our platform. You will thrive here if you enjoy collaborating across disciplines and learning from people whose expertise differs from your own.

Your Impact

You will turn experimental labs into first-class, programmable parts of the CuspAI platform. Every partner you onboard, and every integration you harden, shortens the loop between an AI-generated hypothesis and a validated material.

What You Will Do

• Help shape how we connect to partner labs around the world, accounting for different levels of automation and AI-readiness, then design, build and operate the services that send experiment requests from our AI agents and reliably bring results back.
• Build APIs and data models (e.g. FastAPI, Pydantic) for bidirectional lab-to-cloud data exchange.
• Integrate with lab instruments, robotic platforms, LIMS/ELN systems and scheduling software, translating between disparate formats and CuspAI's data platform.
• Make integrations reliable at scale: idempotency, retries, queueing, monitoring and alerting across many partners and time zones.
• Assist with the technical onboarding of new lab partners, assessing their systems and setting up integrations quickly and repeatedly.
• Collaborate day to day with experimental materials scientists, optimisation experts and engineers on the team, co-designing workflows and feeding lab realities back into platform design.
• Deploy and run containerised services on cloud infrastructure, with testing and CI/CD as standard.

Must Have Skills And Qualifications

• Hands‑on experience with lab automation, self-driving labs or other scientific discovery workflows, e.g. instrument control, robotic platforms, or high‑throughput experimentation data pipelines.
• Strong software engineering background, with production experience building and operating backend services.
• Deep fluency in Python, including typed, well‑tested code and API design.
• Experience designing distributed systems that integrate with external parties: APIs, message queues or event‑driven architectures, and data contracts.
• Solid understanding of security practices for externally facing systems.
• A collaborative mindset: you enjoy working in a small, multidisciplinary team, and can communicate clearly with experimental scientists, optimisation experts and engineers alike.

Bonus Points

• Experimental lab experience in materials science, chemistry or chemical engineering.
• Experience with workflow orchestration (e.g. Dagster, Flyte, Prefect) or active learning loops.
• Experience with infrastructure as code (e.g. Terraform) and observability tooling.
• Security or compliance experience or handling partner IP and confidential data.
• Experience working across distributed teams and multiple time zones.

What we offer

• A competitive salary: We value and reward impact and growth
• Equity in CuspAI: You have a stake in the success of the company
• Time off to stay fresh: 28 days holiday (DE, NL, UK) or 21 days holiday (JP, SG, US), in addition to local public holidays
• ‘Gold Standard’ parental leave: 26 weeks (primary caregiver) and 12 weeks (secondary caregiver) at full pay - we look after you and your family while we work on the most important materials discovery problems together
• Professional development budget: We invest in your career development so you can stay up to date with the latest industry knowledge or add to your skills to increase impact and growth
• Solve meaningful problems: See how your work has a direct impact on advancing materials science and solving sustainability and climate‑related problems through the creation and application of bleeding‑edge SOTA technology and revolutionary techniques
• True interdisciplinary teamwork: Be part of a deeply collaborative environment bridging AI research, computational chemistry, and experimental science - work with world‑class researchers and engineers who enjoy sharing knowledge and supporting each other

Join us in shaping the future of materials with AI. Together, we can create groundbreaking solutions for a more sustainable world.

CuspAI is an equal opportunities employer committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace

We do not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, religion or belief, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, citizenship, marital, domestic or civil partnership status, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy or related condition (including breastfeeding), veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

We actively encourage applications from all backgrounds and value the unique perspectives and contributions that diversity brings to our team.

Please let us know if you require any specific adjustments during or after the interview process. We will do everything we can within reason to accommodate.