Senior Software Engineer, ML Platform

Xairatherapeutics; Seattle (WA); On-site; USD 205,000 - 325,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Bonus

Job summary

Xaira Therapeutics seeks a Senior Software Engineer to design, build, and deploy the AI infrastructure powering our research teams. You will enable thousands of GPUs for training and inference of biological foundation models across multi-cloud clusters.

Ideal candidates have 5+ years of experience deploying ML systems, strong Python skills, and a track record of technical leadership. The role emphasizes backend tooling and scalable pipelines in a collaborative, interdisciplinary environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and deploying ML systems in production.
• Experience leading technical projects and cross-functional execution.
• Strong Python programming skills.
• Experience with infrastructure/ops tools such as Terraform and Ansible.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as Torch and Jax.

Responsibilities

• Develop and improve our model training system, dispatching distributed training jobs to clusters across multiple clouds.
• Deploy storage subsystems to improve dataset management and throughput for training datasets.
• Build evaluation infrastructure for easy execution and tracking.
• Build base tooling to integrate model training with telemetry, experiment tracking, and checkpointing.
• Collaborate with AI Scientists and other engineers; knowledge of biology not required to start, but possible lab exposure is a perk.

Skills

Python programming

ML systems production

Project leadership

Slurm/Kubernetes approach

Problem solving

Collaboration

Education

Degree in Computer Science / ML / Computational Biology or related field

Tools

Terraform

Ansible

Torch

Jax

Job description

About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

About the Role

We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Platform team to design, build, and deploy the AI infrastructure that powers our world-class research team. In this role, you’ll collaborate closely with AI Scientists and other engineers to enable the effective use of thousands of GPUs for training and inferencing cutting-edge biological foundation models.

This role spans a range of problems and skillsets, ranging from MLOps of cutting-edge GPU clusters, to backend engineering of control plane APIs. Our ideal candidate has an opinion about slurm or kubernetes for model training, cares about maximizing bandwidth from the storage subsystems to the GPU, and can build the API paved path for submitting training jobs that are able to dispatch to multiple clusters.

What You Will Do

• Develop and improve our model training system, responsible for dispatching distributed training jobs to clusters across multiple clouds.
• Deploy storage subsystems that improve dataset management and throughput for training datasets.
• Build evaluation infrastructure that enables easy execution and tracking.
• Build base tooling for integrating model training with other internal infrastructure, such as telemetry, experiment tracking, and checkpointing.
• Prior experience with biology is not required - we will teach what you need to know. You’ll get to go in the lab, and for our ideal candidate, this should be a perk, not a chore!

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computational Biology, or a related field.
• 5+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML systems in production environments
• Experience leading technical projects and driving cross-functional execution.
• Strong programming skills in Python.
• Experience with infrastructure/ops tools such as Terraform, Ansible.
• Experience with deep learning frameworks such as Torch, Jax.
• Solid understanding of machine learning
• Experience with the infrastructure needs of large-scale model training.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment.

Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. We offer a competitive package that includes base salary, bonus, and equity. The base pay range for this position is expected to be $205,000 - $275,000 annually with a total cash compensation up to $235,000 - $325,000; however, the compensation offered may vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.
Xaira Therapeutics an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.