Staff Forward Deployed Engineer, Physical Sciences (Level Flexible)

Lila Sciences, Inc.; Cambridge (MA); Hybrid; USD 192,000 - 256,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Job summary

Lila Sciences is seeking extraordinarily talented Forward Deployed Engineers at Engineer, Senior Engineer, and Lead Engineer levels to join our growing team. This FDE role embeds directly with our internal biotech and materials science teams as well as external customers, tackling real problems with AI-fueled engineering.

You’ll build data-driven tools, orchestration workflows, and interfaces across backend, frontend, and data layers while traveling to customer sites for deployments.

Qualifications

• Domain expertise in chemistry, materials science, or related field.
• Experience with data engineering, ETL pipelines, and messy datasets.
• Strong full-stack development skills across backend, frontend, and data layers.
• Excellent communication with executives and manufacturing teams.
• Willingness to travel to customer sites for deployments.

Responsibilities

• Develop domain-specific tools for data analysis and modeling.
• Deploy agentic scientific workflows with industrial instruments and data systems.
• Build real-time data pipelines transforming messy data into insights.
• Create intuitive interfaces for AI/ML capabilities.
• Architect solutions from proof-of-concept to enterprise deployment.

Skills

Chemistry

Materials science

Data engineering

ETL pipelines

Full-stack development

Communication

Travel to customer sites

Tools

NumPy

Pandas

SciPy

RDKit

TypeScript

React

Job description

Your Impact at LILA

We’re seeking extraordinarily talented Forward Deployed Engineers across Engineer, Senior Engineer, and Lead Engineer levels to join our growing team. Our FDEs are high-performing generalists with a broad set of skills, in addition to depth in one or more focus areas. This FDE, Physical Sciences role requires experience in chemistry and materials science in an industrial manufacturing setting.

As an FDE, you’ll embed directly with our internal biotech and materials science teams as well as external customers, living their problems and rapidly building solutions that transform their research capabilities. You’ll leverage our AI and software platform tools while developing bespoke features that address each customer’s unique challenges. This isn’t traditional software development—it’s high-velocity, AI-fueled, high-impact engineering where you’ll ship production code in days, not months.

What You’ll Be Building

• Developing, wrapping, and adapting domain-specific tools for data analysis, process optimization, molecular modeling, and more
• Deploying custom, agentic scientific workflows that integrate with industrial instruments (PLCs, control software) and data systems (ERP, MES, SCADA)
• Building real-time data pipelines that transform messy scientific data into actionable insights
• Creating intuitive interfaces that make complex AI/ML capabilities accessible to scientists
• Architecting solutions that scale from proof-of-concept to enterprise-wide deployment

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• Domain expertise in chemistry, materials science, or related field
• Outstanding communication skills—you’ll interface directly with both executives and the manufacturing line
• Experience with data engineering, ETL pipelines, and working with complex/messy datasets
• Strong full-stack development skills with the ability to work across backend, frontend, and data layers
• Exceptional problem-solving abilities and comfort with ambiguous requirements
• Knack for product discovery and ability to pass requirements back to the platform
• Willingness to travel to customer sites for frequent and extended deployments

Bonus Points For

• Previous customer-facing or consulting experience
• Depth in controls engineering and machine learning
• Experience with scientific computing libraries (NumPy, Pandas, SciPy, RDKit)
• Familiarity with ML/AI implementation and deployment
• Familiarity with modern web technologies (TypeScript, React)

What Makes a Great FDE

• Customer Obsessed : You’re energized by understanding customer problems deeply and seeing your solutions drive real impact
• Fast Learner : You quickly grasp new scientific domains and translate complex requirements into elegant solutions
• Autonomous : You thrive with minimal supervision and take extreme ownership of customer success
• Collaborative : You work seamlessly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Technically Versatile : You’re comfortable jumping between technologies and picking up new tools as needed

Ready to Transform Scientific Discovery?

If you’re excited about embedding with world‑class scientists, shipping impactful solutions at startup speed, and building the future of scientific software, we want to hear from you. Join us in our mission to accelerate breakthrough discoveries that will define the next century of human progress.

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

$192,000—$256,000 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.

We’re All In

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.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.