Product Engineer

Periodic Labs; Menlo Park (CA); On-site; USD 100,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

An innovative technology company based in Menlo Park is seeking a product-focused generalist engineer to develop tools that connect AI models with scientific workflows. The role involves prototyping applications, collaborating with scientists, and shaping the product engineering culture. Ideal candidates will have experience in product development and strong teamwork abilities.

Qualifications

• Experience in product-focused engineering roles.
• Proficient in developing prototypes and lightweight applications.
• Strong collaboration skills with scientists and technical teams.

Responsibilities

• Prototype fast, ship often, building products based on lab feedback.
• Create lightweight apps for scientific data and model integrations.
• Collaborate with researchers to guide product design and objectives.

Job description

About Periodic Labs

We are an AI + physical sciences lab building state of the art models to make novel scientific discoveries. We are well funded and growing rapidly. Team members are owners who identify and solve problems without boundaries or bureaucracy. We eagerly learn new tools and new science to push forward our mission.

About the role

We’re hiring a product-focused generalist engineer to turn Periodic’s cutting-edge models into real tools for scientists—both inside our labs and in customer environments. You’ll prototype end-to-end products connecting AI models with real lab systems, and iterate directly with scientists, model researchers, and customers to shape the right product, in turn informing what the model optimizes and how it’s deployed.

You’ll be the engineering owner on a small, highly collaborative pod of materials, ML, and product expertise. As one of Periodic’s first product hires, you’ll help define the culture of product engineering at the company, spanning internal tools and customer-facing applications.

What you’ll do

• Prototype fast, ship often. You’ll build small, sharp products that scientists use daily and iterate based on real lab feedback.
• Create lightweight apps (chat-style, dashboards, experiment planners) that sit on top of our frontier models and scientific data.
• Collaborate with model researchers to define product shape, telemetry, and signals that guide model objectives and RL reward design.
• Own the stack from schema design to API and minimal frontend, deployment, and observability.
• Sit with materials scientists, watch workflows, spot bottlenecks, and proactively build what’s useful before it’s requested.