Lead Software Engineer

Pan.bio; Boston, Northern (MA, KY); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 230,000; Full time

Job summary

PanBio seeks a Lead Software Engineer to provide architectural leadership while staying hands‑on with design, development, and decision‑making. You will translate scientific and product requirements into scalable systems, guide engineering standards, mentor engineers, and contribute to key platform capabilities across the organization.

This role balances hands‑on development with strategic direction, shaping PanBio’s engineering culture and future technology roadmap in a growing bioinformatics

Qualifications

• Shipped and led full‑stack features end‑to‑end.
• Experience designing architectures for complex apps and distributed systems.
• Built and operated modern web apps and APIs using contemporary stacks.
• Experience with cloud platforms, containers, CI/CD, observability, and production operations.

Responsibilities

• Provide architectural leadership for PanBio’s platforms.
• Lead design, development, and evolution of software platforms to be scalable, secure, and maintainable.
• Establish engineering standards, code quality, and technical documentation.
• Make architectural decisions balancing technical excellence with delivery needs and business priorities.
• Design and review software systems, APIs, data platforms, and cloud integrations across the org.
• Collaborate with scientists and external partners to translate requirements into robust software.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews and technical coaching.
• Identify risks and drive continuous improvement of engineering processes.
• Contribute to software development and hands‑on implementation of key components.
• Support hiring, technical assessment, and growth of the engineering team.

Skills

Full‑stack delivery

Software architecture

Mentoring engineers

Cross-functional collaboration

Technical leadership

System design

Security & compliance

Business requirements translation

Effective communication

Robust engineering practices

Tools

TypeScript/Node.js

React

Python

GCP

Kubernetes

CI/CD

Docker

Job description

Now Hiring Engineering Software Engineering Priority Hire

Lead Software Engineer

About PanBio

PanBio develops software platforms that help researchers, bioinformaticians, and life science organisations analyse, manage, and derive insights from complex biological and clinical data. Our work sits at the intersection of software engineering, bioinformatics, AI, and biomedical research.

We are a small, cross-disciplinary team of engineers, scientists, and bioinformaticians building products that support real-world research and discovery. As we grow, we are looking for exceptional engineers who want to help shape both our technology and our engineering culture.

The Role

This is a hands-on technical leadership role reporting to the CTO. As Lead Software Engineer, you will provide architectural leadership for PanBio’s software platforms while remaining actively involved in software design, development, and technical decision‑making.

You will help translate business, scientific, and product requirements into scalable and maintainable systems, guide engineering standards and practices, mentor other engineers, and contribute directly to the delivery of key capabilities across the platform.

This role is intended for an experienced engineer who enjoys balancing hands‑on development with technical leadership and who wants to play a significant role in shaping the future direction of a growing company.

What You’ll Do

• Provide technical leadership for the software engineering team and serve as a trusted advisor to the CTO on architectural and engineering decisions.
• Lead the design, development, and evolution of PanBio's software platforms, ensuring solutions are scalable, maintainable, secure, and aligned with business objectives.
• Establish and maintain engineering standards, development practices, code quality expectations, and technical documentation.
• Make and communicate architectural decisions, balancing technical excellence with delivery needs and business priorities.
• Design and review software systems, APIs, data platforms, cloud infrastructure, and integrations across the organisation.
• Work closely with scientists, bioinformaticians, AI specialists, and external collaborators to translate scientific and business requirements into robust software solutions.
• Mentor engineers through code reviews, design reviews, technical coaching, and day-to-day guidance.
• Identify technical risks, manage technical debt, and drive continuous improvement of engineering processes and systems.
• Contribute directly to software development and remain actively involved in implementation of key components and services.
• Support hiring, technical assessment, and growth of the engineering team.

What We’re Looking For

Required qualifications

• Strong software engineering fundamentals with real product taste; you’ve shipped and led full‑stack features and systems end‑to‑end.
• Demonstrated experience designing and evolving software architectures for complex applications and distributed systems.
• Strong experience building and operating modern web applications and APIs, with expertise in at least one contemporary backend and frontend technology stack.
• Experience with cloud platforms, containers, CI/CD, observability, and production operations.
• Solid data skills with relational databases, including schema design and performance optimization fundamentals.
• Strong technical judgement, with the ability to balance scalability, maintainability, security, cost, and delivery timelines.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and raising team standards through technical leadership.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical direction, architectural decisions, and delivery plans.
• Excellent collaboration and written communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with TypeScript/Node.js and React.
• Experience with GCP.
• Experience with Kubernetes.
• Experience with Python and scientific computing.
• Experience in bioinformatics, genomics, healthcare, life sciences, or research environments.
• Experience building AI/ML‑enabled or data‑intensive platforms.
• Experience working in startup or scale‑up environments.

Technical Challenges You’ll Help Solve

• Building scalable platforms for analysing, managing, and interpreting genomic and clinical data.
• Developing computational environments that support bioinformatics, AI, and data‑intensive scientific workflows.
• Integrating AI capabilities into research, analysis, and knowledge‑discovery workflows.
• Designing secure and compliant architectures for sensitive biomedical data.
• Enabling researchers and scientists to collaborate effectively on large‑scale datasets and analyses.
• Improving the scalability, reliability, observability, and operational maturity of our cloud platform.
• Defining the architectural foundations that will support PanBio’s next stage of growth.