Senior AI-Driven Backend Engineer for Drug Discovery

Xaira Therapeutics; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 205,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation package

Equity

Job summary

Xaira Therapeutics is seeking an experienced backend engineer to join the X-Scientist team in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will build Python services, APIs, and workflow tooling that connect AI models with biology-focused data and tools, enabling researchers to design and test novel therapeutics at scale.

You will work across AI scientists, engineers, and drug discovery experts to design reliable, observable systems for long-running analyses, with attention to maintainability and

Qualifications

• Strong Python engineering fundamentals, with clean, typed, tested, maintainable code.
• Experience building production libraries, CLIs, APIs, SDKs, backend services, or workflow systems.
• Familiarity with LLM application development, agent frameworks, tool calling, MCP-style interfaces, or orchestration systems.
• Ability to work with complex systems that combine multiple components and evolving user needs.

Responsibilities

• Backend systems and APIs that connect AI models to scientific tools, datasets, and analysis workflows
• Tool-calling infrastructure, CLIs, SDKs, and workflow runners used by scientists and ML researchers
• Agentic interfaces where users can run analyses, inspect intermediate steps, and iterate on results
• Observability and testing for long-running workflows that call external tools and produce scientific outputs
• Design reliable systems for long-running, multi-step workflows with strong testing, observability, logging, and maintainability
• Collaborate with scientific and technical teams to turn complex research workflows into usable, extensible software

Skills

Python

Backend systems

APIs

LLM

Orchestration

Job description

Xaira Therapeutics is seeking an experienced backend engineer to join the X-Scientist team in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will build Python services, APIs, and workflow tooling that connect AI models with biology-focused data and tools, enabling researchers to design and test novel therapeutics at scale.

You will work across AI scientists, engineers, and drug discovery experts to design reliable, observable systems for long-running analyses, with attention to maintainability and