Senior Data Engineer, Bioinformatics, Cheminformatics, Materials

Lila Sciences; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Lila Sciences is seeking a Data Engineer in San Francisco to build ETL pipelines and data models for its scientific data platform, collaborating with AI researchers and experimentalists to turn raw lab instrument outputs into validated datasets.

You will model heterogeneous data from bio, chemistry, and materials instruments, implement validation checks, and develop reusable analysis functions, while improving automation and observability across data flows.

Qualifications

• 2–6 years of experience in data engineering, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, or computational science.
• Strong Python skills, including typed, tested, production-quality code.
• Strong SQL skills, especially with Postgres or similar relational databases.
• Experience building ETL pipelines, data models, and reusable data transformations.
• Data science foundation, including statistics and pandas, NumPy, or similar tools.
• Experience translating noisy scientific measurements into accurate, validated datasets.
• Workflow orchestration experience, ideally Flyte, Airflow, Prefect, Dagster, or Nextflow.
• Active use of AI coding tools in day-to-day engineering work.

Responsibilities

• Design pipelines that turn raw lab output into analysis-ready scientific data.
• Model heterogeneous data from bio, chemistry, and materials instruments.
• Build validation checks, schema-evolution gates, and data quality workflows.
• Develop reusable analysis functions for scientific and AI research workflows.
• Improve automation and observability across instrument-to-result data flows.
• Build canonical datasets that scientists and AI researchers can trust.
• Use AI coding tools to accelerate pipeline development and team velocity.

Skills

Python

SQL

ETL pipelines

Data modeling

Statistics

Pandas/NumPy

Data quality

AI coding tools

Noisy data handling

Tools

Airflow

Dagster

Prefect

Flyte

Nextflow

Parquet

Iceberg

DuckDB

Polars

Ibis

Job description

San Francisco, CA USA

Lila’s mission is to accelerate scientific discovery with AI, and that depends on trustworthy scientific data. As a Data Engineer, you’ll build ETL pipelines and data models for Lila’s scientific data platform, working at the intersection of data engineering, computational biology, chemistry, and materials science.

You’ll partner with AI researchers and experimentalists to turn raw lab instrument outputs into validated, analysis-ready datasets. The core challenge is data modeling: transforming messy, per-instrument measurements into clean, well-typed data that is efficient to query, reliable to use, and ready for downstream analysis.

You’ll also build domain-specific analysis functions and reusable data pipelines that help scientists and AI researchers move faster without re-deriving bespoke solutions.

What You'll Be Building

• Design pipelines that turn raw lab output into analysis-ready scientific data.
• Model heterogeneous data from bio, chemistry, and materials instruments.
• Build validation checks, schema-evolution gates, and data quality workflows.
• Develop reusable analysis functions for scientific and AI research workflows.
• Improve automation and observability across instrument-to-result data flows.
• Build canonical datasets that scientists and AI researchers can trust.
• Use AI coding tools to accelerate pipeline development and team velocity.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• 2–6 years of experience in data engineering, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, or computational science.
• Strong Python skills, including typed, tested, production-quality code.
• Strong SQL skills, especially with Postgres or similar relational databases.
• Experience building ETL pipelines, data models, and reusable data transformations.
• Data science foundation, including statistics and pandas, NumPy, or similar tools.
• Experience translating noisy scientific measurements into accurate, validated datasets.
• Workflow orchestration experience, ideally Flyte, Airflow, Prefect, Dagster, or Nextflow.
• Active use of AI coding tools in day-to-day engineering work.

Bonus Points For

• Experience with columnar or lakehouse stacks such as Parquet, Iceberg, DuckDB, Polars, or Ibis.
• Familiarity with event-driven pipelines such as NATS or Kafka.
• Exposure to lab instrument data formats, LIMS, or ELN systems.
• Familiarity with life sciences assays, sequencing, imaging, or flow cytometry.
• Familiarity with materials or chemistry methods such as XRD, XRF, SEM, TGA, or DSC.
• Experience with curve fitting, peak detection, or unit and dimensional analysis.

Compensation

We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.

U.S. Benefits.

Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.

International Benefits.

Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.

Expected Base Salary Range

$144,000 - $240,000 USD

About LILA

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard‑coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.

LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.

Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.

Lila Sciences iscommitted to equal employment opportunityregardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

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