Senior Software Engineer, Data

Lila Sciences; San Francisco, Cambridge (CA, MA); On-site; USD 144,000 - 288,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits program

Flexible time off

Paid parental leave

Educational assistance program

Company subsidized lunch program

Job summary

Lila Sciences in San Francisco is seeking a Senior Software Engineer with backend experience to join their Data Platform Team. The role involves designing and building high-performance APIs, managing diverse data systems, and collaborating with scientists and engineers to integrate data pipelines into scientific workflows.

With 5-8+ years of experience in building large-scale backend systems and expertise in AWS and Kubernetes, the ideal candidate will thrive in a fast-paced environment. The compensation package includes competitive salary and generous benefits.

Qualifications

• 5-8+ years of engineering experience building large-scale backend systems.
• Hands-on experience with AWS and Kubernetes.
• Proven ability to deliver backend solutions balancing trade-offs.

Responsibilities

• Design and build high-performance APIs integrating with AI-driven applications.
• Develop schemas and manage diverse data systems for optimal performance.
• Optimize system performance ensuring high availability across workloads.

Skills

Backend development

Collaboration with ML engineers

API design

Cloud services (AWS)

Containerization (Kubernetes)

Database management

Full stack development

Problem-solving

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

AWS

SQLAlchemy

Airflow

FastAPI

Job description

Cambridge, MA USA; San Francisco, CA USA

Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Senior Software Engineers with backend experience to join our Data Platform Team (Data), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, lab scientists, and machine learning engineers to build cutting‑edge tools for automated scientific analysis and more. If you thrive in a collaborative, fast‑paced environment and bring best practices in git, development workflows, and user‑centered design, we want to hear from you!

About The Team

The Data Platform Team (Data) builds and support the data systems that underpins Lila's AI Science Factory™. Every experiment run in our labs, every measurement from an instrument, and every signal from our operational systems flows through the platform they build. Their work spans real‑time ingestion, large‑scale analytical storage, workflow orchestration, and the self‑service tools scientists, engineers, and ML teams use to go from raw measurements to discoveries. They build the data backbone of Scientific Superintelligence™, so the science moves faster and each experiment makes the next one smarter.

What You'll Be Building

• Design & Build APIs: Design and build high‑performance, secure, and well‑documented APIs that integrate with AI‑driven applications.
• Database Architecture & Scaling: Develop schemas and manage diverse data systems (SQL, NoSQL, Vector DBs, and others) for optimal performance and scalability.
• Performance & Reliability: Diagnose and optimize system bottlenecks, ensuring high availability and low‑latency performance across large‑scale workloads.
• Cloud & Infrastructure: Leverage AWS services, Kubernetes and modern DevOps practices to build and deploy production‑grade systems at scale.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration: Work with ML researchers, engineers, and scientists to integrate data pipelines, APIs, and cloud infrastructure into scientific workflows.

What You'll Need To Succeed

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field.
• 5-8+ years of engineering experience building and deploying large‑scale backend systems in production.
• Cloud & DevOps Knowledge: Hands‑on experience with AWS; strong understanding of Kubernetes and containerization, infrastructure‑as‑code (Terraform, CloudFormation), and CI/CD pipelines (GitHub Actions).
• Experience with ORMs: Experience with and web services for CRUD services (SQL Alchemy, SQLModel, FastAPI, Django).
• Orchestration Systems: Experience with orchestrator tools (Airflow, Prefect, Temporal, Dagster).
• Full Stack Development: Experience developing web apps across the full stack (React, TypeScript, Monorepos like Nx, TailWind, FastAPI, SQL/NoSQL, Python, Pydantic).
• Hands on experience using AI coding assistants to drive productivity is required.
• Communication & Collaboration: Acute listening skills, and a proven track record of working cross‑functionally with scientists, data engineers, and product teams; able to explain complex ideas to diverse audiences.
• Problem Solving: Proven ability to deliver backend solutions, balancing trade‑offs between scalability, performance, and maintainability.

Bonus Points For

• Familiarity with Python for Science: Familiarity with data science and ML libraries (pandas, numpy, scipy, jax, pytorch).
• Domain Background: Exposure to laboratory software or analytics for life sciences, material sciences, or related fields.
• Experience with laboratory devices, robotics, or hardware

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 - $288,000 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.

Equal Opportunity

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