Staff Software Engineer | Core Platform

Manifold AI; Cambridge (MA); On-site; USD 170,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Manifold is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join the Core Platform team. You will design, build, and operate the compute and workflow orchestration services that power our data and AI workflows used by enterprise customers in life sciences.

You'll work hands-on on infrastructure, be a technical multiplier, mentor engineers, and help shape long-term platform architecture while delivering reliable, observable services at scale for genomics and clinical data analysis.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of enterprise software experience in backend or distributed systems.
• Mastery of Python; strong IaC experience with Terraform.
• Experience managing compute environments on AWS (EC2, ECS, Batch).
• Bioinformatics workflow experience (WDL/Nextflow/Cromwell) a plus.
• Life sciences or regulated industry exposure a plus.
• Strong ownership, observability, and incident response ethos.
• Experience integrating AI tools into engineering workflows.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate Manifold’s compute and workflow orchestration services.
• Work with SRE to improve reliability and observability; set standards.
• Be a technical multiplier; mentor engineers; drive cross-cutting improvements.
• Partner with Product and account teams to translate enterprise requirements into durable platform capabilities.
• Contribute to Manifold’s AI-native platform vision.

Skills

Python

Backend development

Distributed systems

Mentoring

Tools

Terraform

AWS

EC2/ECS/Batch

Job description

Manifold is the AI platform for life sciences, accelerating life-changing medicines to patients. Our products speed up workflows in areas from target identification and clinical development to market access and precision medicine in the clinic, while maintaining the governance life sciences requires. Global companies and premier research institutions use Manifold to operate faster and more effectively. Backed by leading investors including Reach Capital, TQ Ventures, Calibrate Ventures, SilverArc Capital, and Industry Ventures, Manifold serves tens of thousands of users across hundreds of organizations globally.

About the Role

Manifold is looking for a Staff Software Engineer to join the Core Platform team: A small, senior group responsible for the foundational services that power Manifold's data, compute, and workflow capabilities.

As a Staff Engineer on the Core team you’ll have an opportunity to work on compute infrastructure, workflow orchestration, data pipelines, platform APIs and MCP services. You will be supporting active enterprise users (and their AI agents) who are analyzing genomics and life sciences datasets at scale. This is a hands-on, individual contributor role. But we’re also looking for individuals who demonstrate a strong sense of ownership and are experienced enough to help shape our longer term product architecture. These core services play a critical role in Manifold's success, and help our customers bring life-changing medicines to patients faster.

What You'll Do

• Help design, build and operate Manifold’s compute and workflow orchestration services. Develop extensible and durable solutions for AMI management, autoscaling, custom runtime environments, 3rd party tool support, etc.
• Work closely with SRE team to Improve reliability and observability of Manifold core services. Establish operational standards, alerting, and run-books that move the team from reactive firefighting to proactive ownership.
• Be a technical multiplier. Mentor engineers, drive technical decisions through clearly written artifacts, and bring a cross-cutting perspective that improves the team's collective output.
• Partner with Product, Forward Deployed Engineers, and account teams to translate bespoke enterprise requirements into durable platform capabilities. Fully understand customers’ most pressing problems and validate end-to-end solutions.
• Contribute to Manifold’s AI-native platform vision. Spot AI industry trends before they happen, and have informed opinions about how they potentially benefit life sciences research.

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of enterprise software experience, with a meaningful portion spent on backend, infrastructure-adjacent, or distributed systems work. You've owned complex, scalable, production systems and can share plenty of real-world stories.
• Mastery of Python and deep infrastructure-as-code (Terraform) experience.
• Experience managing compute environments on AWS (EC2, ECS, Batch, or equivalent) including autoscaling and cost / performance tradeoffs.
• Bioinformatics workflow experience a plus (specifically WDL, Nextflow, or Cromwell).
• General Life sciences or other regulated-industry experience also a plus.
• Comfortable supporting a broad technical surface area. You know how to orient quickly in an unfamiliar codebase or system.
• Operational ownership mindset. You care about what happens in production, you build for observability from the start, and you close the loop on incidents with durable fixes.
• You've genuinely integrated AI tools into your engineering workflow and have concrete examples of how that changed your output. You're not just curious about this space, you're building in it.
• You've done your homework on what it means to accelerate life sciences research and you can articulate why that mission matters to you.

Why Manifold

• We offer the unique opportunity to work at the frontier of AI in life sciences, helping the world's leading research and clinical institutions adopt transformative technology.
• This is a high-autonomy, high-impact role where your work directly leads to positive customer outcomes that accelerate breakthrough science.
• You will gain exposure to a wide range of technical and business challenges across oncology, genomics, clinical data, and AI agent development.
• You will work with a collaborative team of engineers, scientists, and operators who are building something genuinely new and important.
• This is an opportunity to grow fast in a company that takes talent seriously. We offer strong compensation packages and excellent benefits.

Salary Range

The base salary range for this position is $170,000–$220,000 annually.

• Please note: Final offer amounts are determined by multiple factors, including prior experience and expertise, and may vary from the amount above. This range does not represent additional compensation benefits (such as equity, 401K match or medical, dental or vision insurance).