Software Engineer, Platform (Developer Experience)

Benchling; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 173,000 - 234,000; Full time

Job summary

Benchling, the AI platform for biotech R&D, is seeking a Developer Experience leader within the Platform pillar to empower engineers with tooling that accelerates the path to production. You’ll work with the Developer Productivity and Release Engineering teams to create frameworks that enhance developer experience and streamline workflows.

Your impact includes delivering production-ready tooling, improving release processes, and scaling engineering practices.

Qualifications

• 4+ years of software engineering experience.
• Build tools with a product-first approach; ship code quickly.
• Expertise with at least one web framework, preferably Node or Python.
• Strong problem solving and feedback iteration abilities.
• Enjoy ownership and building key pieces of product.
• Empathy for customers and curiosity about challenges.
• Interest in life science and learning is a must.
• Clear and effective communication in cross-functional settings.

Responsibilities

• Build and implement tooling for efficient, frictionless development, testing, and packaging for production release.
• Lead the design and development of release tooling that enables code changes to reach production within 10 minutes.
• Iterate on developer experience improvements using qualitative and quantitative feedback.
• Implement feedback loops that integrate quality into software development workflows.
• Champion effective engineering and operational patterns across the Engineering org.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to address challenges in engineering workflows that impact developer happiness and productivity.
• Work closely with product managers, designers, and peers in engineering to make Benchling a delightful place to develop software.
• Help rapidly scale our product and team; mature tooling, engineering processes, and hiring.

Skills

Software engineering

Web framework (Node/Python)

Problem solving

Ownership and product mindset

Cross-functional communication

Tools

Node.js

Python

Job description

We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era. When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done. Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma. We’re building an AI scientist for our customers. We can’t do that if we haven’t built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it’s core to how we work, and we’re committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day‑to‑day. As part of our interview process, you’ll complete a brief AI‑focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.

Role Overview

Developer Experience is a crucial function that empowers our engineers to excel in their craft. As a technical leader in the Platform pillar, you’ll work closely with the Developer Productivity and Release Engineering teams to create tools and frameworks that enhance developer experience, with a focus on the Path to Production. Your success will enable our engineering teams to efficiently deliver high quality products. By understanding the unique challenges developers face and crafting solutions to streamline their workflows, you'll play a key role in driving innovation and fulfilling Benchling’s mission.

Responsibilities

• Build and implement tooling for efficient, frictionless development, testing, and packaging for production release.
• Lead the design and development of release tooling that enables code changes to reach production within 10 minutes.
• Iterate on developer experience improvements using qualitative and quantitative feedback.
• Implement feedback loops that integrate quality into software development workflows.
• Champion effective engineering and operational patterns across the Engineering org.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to address challenges in engineering workflows that impact developer happiness and productivity.
• Work closely with product managers, designers, and peers in engineering to make Benchling a delightful place to develop software.
• Help rapidly scale our product and team. As a member of the engineering team, you’ll be an integral part of how we mature our tooling, best practices, engineering processes, and hiring.

Qualifications

• You have 4+ years of experience in software engineering.
• Build tools and software with a product‑first approach. You ship code quickly and care about the real world impact of your code.
• Expertise with at least one web framework, preferably node or python.
• Have strong abilities in problem solving and iterating on feedback.
• Enjoy ownership and building key pieces of product.
• Have empathy for your customers and curiosity about their challenges.
• Are interested in learning more about life science (prior knowledge is not required; desire to learn is a must).
• Clear and effective communicator, especially in cross‑functional settings

How We Work

We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on‑site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).

#BI-Hybrid

Benchling welcomes everyone.

We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.

We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

Compensation Range: $173K - $234K