Principal Platform Engineer, DevOps and Deployment (Regulated AI Software)

ESQlabs GmbH; United States; Remote; USD 101,000 - 146,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible work hours

Remuneration package

Regular in-person team gatherings

Career perspective

Job summary

ESQlabs GmbH in Germany seeks a senior platform/backend engineer to own the compute core, release pipeline, deployment into client environments, and the provenance behind every result. You will build services the AI layer runs on, handle per-client isolation, metering, and signed records, and drive secure, reproducible software in a regulated context.

You will design versioned APIs, participate in CI/CD, and collaborate with a cross-disciplinary team to advance an open, certified scientific

Qualifications

• Five+ years of platform, infrastructure or backend engineering with ownership of a production system.
• Experience with reproducible builds, artifact hashing and hermetic builds.
• Proficiency with Kubernetes or similar orchestrators, monitoring and release management.
• Strong API design skills with contract-first thinking and versioning/deprecation practices.
• Security engineering for multi-tenant systems and awareness of regulated software risks.

Responsibilities

• Make the scientific compute core deterministic with pinned toolchains and content-addressed images.
• Build the services the AI layer runs on, including per-client isolation and usage metering.
• Expose the platform as a versioned API and ship reproducibility packages for external runs.
• Run the evaluation pipeline in CI: conformance, re-execution and regression tests.
• Own release engineering and operations: CI/CD, signed releases, installation qualification, and environment management.

Skills

Platform/backend engineering

Kubernetes

API design

Security engineering

Reproducible builds

Tools

CI/CD pipelines

Job description

Location: Germany

ESQlabs is an innovative, internationally active Contract Research Organization (CRO) and a global leader in the development and application of the Open Systems Pharmacology (OSP) Suite. We combine mechanistic modeling, Physiologically Based Pharmacokinetics (PBPK) and Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP), with software and training to support Model-Informed Drug Development (MIDD) and Next-Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA) for pharmaceutical, chemical, and academic partners worldwide. Our mission is to empower life sciences: helping scientists understand mechanisms of disease and chemical toxicity to optimize individualized, safer, and more efficient treatment and testing strategies.

We are building a platform where AI agents help scientists set up regulated modeling analyses, and fixed, versioned procedures run them. This job is about the engine room: the compute core, the release pipeline and the operations.

About the role

You make sure our analyses can be reproduced, shipped to clients and checked later. You own the compute core, the release pipeline, deployment into client environments, and the metering and provenance behind every result. The AI layer has its own lead and team; you build what they run on. The Quality Manager sets the standards, you implement them. You report to the CEO.

Key Responsibilities

• Make the scientific compute core deterministic: pinned R, Python and solver toolchains, content-addressed container images with a software bill of materials, and tests that prove byte-identical re-execution on a reference platform and tolerance-bounded re-execution across platforms.

• Build the services the AI layer runs on: isolated executors per client without network access, usage metering per call, the signed record and the certificate behind every result. You build the policy engine and the tool router together with the AI lead.

• Expose the platform as a versioned API and as tools for AI agents with one shared contract, and ship the reproducibility package that re-executes a run outside the platform.

• Run the evaluation pipeline in continuous integration: conformance tests against reference case sets, re-execution tests, regression tests, results stored per procedure version.

• Own release engineering and operations: CI/CD pipelines, signed and content-addressed releases, scripted installation qualification, environment management (hosted, in a client tenant, later offline), monitoring, incident handling and the operating model the deployment engineer runs.

• Implement the technical controls behind the information security and AI management standards the Quality Manager owns.

What you bring

• At least five years of platform, infrastructure or backend engineering with senior ownership of a production system.

• Reproducible builds and execution in practice: dependency pinning, artifact hashing, immutable versioning, supply chain integrity. Hermetic build systems are a strong plus.

• Kubernetes or a similar orchestrator, monitoring, and release management for environments you don’t fully control.

• API design where the schema was a contract with external consumers, including versioning and deprecation in practice.

• Security engineering for multi-tenant systems: isolation, secrets, authorization, and awareness of the risks of language-model-driven systems. Exposure to GxP or equivalent regulated software is valuable; interest in acquiring it is required.

What's in store for you

The dynamic team behind ESQlabs unites people with different backgrounds, spanning disciplines like pharmaceutical sciences, physics, bioinformatics, mathematics, data science, and software engineering. Our trust in each other, our open-mindedness, and our constant quest for excellence and innovation unite us. We value flat hierarchies, where everyone can contribute ideas and expertise to develop the best product. We are passionate, always willing to broaden our horizons, and love our start-up culture.

You will also benefit from:

• Flexible work hours and a home office policy that focuses on people and not on numbers

• An attractive remuneration package

• Regular in-person team gatherings at locations across Europe.

• A clearly defined technical problem with a commercial consequence, and the authority to solve it properly rather than quickly.

• A working environment in which your contribution will make a difference, and that allows you to take ownership of projects and processes

• A small, senior team that owns an open‑source platform used by regulators and pharma, and the mandate to set the standard for certified scientific software.

• Responsibility, autonomy, participation, and career perspective

About us

We collaborate with global corporations in the pharma and chemical industry, as well as start-ups in the life-science technology sector and academic and non-profit research institutions. We define new standards in pharmacometrics and systems pharmacology and toxicology areas. Our software and model platforms help scientists understand mechanisms of diseases and chemical toxicity to optimize individualized treatment of patients and protect the health of the animal and human life.

ESQlabs has attracted international players as sponsors for the OSP Software development. In addition, funding through national and EU-wide research grants allows us to develop our core technologies continuously.

For more information about our culture, values and benefits visit our Unique career opportunities - esqLABS GmbH.

ESQlabs is an equal-opportunity employer. We welcome applications from all qualified candidates regardless of background, and value the diversity of perspectives this brings to our team.