Full Stack Software Engineer

Who you are

• Tenure: 2–4+ years of experience as a professional software engineer
• Engineering Fundamentals: Working knowledge of AWS or GCP, relational databases, and standard practices like version control and code review
• Product Instinct: You think like a product person — you want to know who the user is, what they're actually trying to do, and you have opinions about what to build
• Curious About the Science: You don't need a biology background, but you want to learn the domain rather than treat it as someone else's problem
• Comfortable in the Gray Area: You can reason clearly about the tradeoffs between quality and speed
• Fits the Team: You're up for writing design docs, having opinions in code review, and yes, goofing around on Slack
• Domain Experience: Experience with LIMS, lab automation, or another life sciences domain
• Agent/LLM Experience: Experience building with LLMs or agent frameworks — tool and skill design, evaluation, or getting a model to behave reliably against real systems
• Stack Familiarity: Experience with Django, FastAPI, SQLAlchemy, React, TypeScript, PostgreSQL, Docker, or AWS

What the job involves

• Our bar is that everything in the lab should be agentically accessible (any action a scientist can take, an agent can take), agentically legible (agents understand what the data means in insitro's context, not just how to fetch it), and humanly verifiable (a scientist can always check what an agent did and why)
• This is real robotics, workflow automation, and applied agent tooling — and your users are in the building with you
• You'll work across the stack — front end, backend, and the integrations that reach into instruments, Benchling, and agent runtimes — partnering closely with our machine learning, automation, and biology teams
• Based in South San Francisco, this role reports directly to Senior Manager, Software Engineering and offers an in-person hybrid schedule of three days per week. We'll bring you up to speed in the domain of drug development and back your ideas with real trust and mentorship along the way
• Ship Across the Stack: Build the React and TypeScript frontends scientists use every day, the Python services behind them, and integrations that reach instruments, Benchling, and agent runtimes
• Own It End to End: Take a feature from the first conversation with a scientist through the data model and UI to the alert that fires when it breaks
• Do the Normal SWE Things: Write code, review design docs, talk to users, and do code reviews that actually make the codebase better
• Agentic Tooling & Experimentation
• Chase User Appreciation: Ship things that make scientists say "OMG, this is amazing, thank you so much."
• Figure Out What's Actually Useful: Test agentic tooling ideas through prototypes, real users, and short iterative loops rather than betting on theory
• Move the Needle: Contribute work that meaningfully advances insitro's mission and the pace of drug development
• Go Watch the Work: Spend time in the lab observing the workflow before you change it
• Partner Broadly: Collaborate closely with machine learning, automation, and biology teams to build tools people actually use
• Keep Humans in the Loop: Design for provenance and verifiability, so a scientist can always check what an agent did and why

Benefits

• Complete Healthcare Coverage: Take your health seriously without worrying about the costs. insitro offers comprehensive coverage with low premiums for you and your family
• Wellness Benefits: Prioritize your well-being beyond medical care. insitro offers a comprehensive range of benefits tailored to support all aspects of wellness
• Mental Health Support: Our generous healthcare plans include access to digital mental health platforms with a range of services for you and your loved ones
• Supportive Time Off Policies: Flexible vacation time, generous paid parental and bereavement leaves, and a year-end shutdown week
• Support for Hybrid Work: Balance work and your personal commitments with in-person, hybrid and remote options based on the team and role. We support you with home office setup reimbursement as well as co-work space stipends for remote workers
• Formal Learning and Training Programs: Partake in formal programs to help you grow and develop, from day 1 onboarding to new manager training to our annual, in vivo week
• Self Development: Annual personal budget for books, external training, and conferences that nurture you professional passions and development interests
• Access to Knowledge Leaders: Engage with in-house and visiting scholars and experts throughout the year at special events designed exclusively for insitrocytes
• Extensive HQ Benefits: Our insitro HQ offers free daily meals via an onsite cafe and coffee shop, a free fitness facility, an onsite childcare center, and free commuter shuttle buses
• Social Connection: get to know your colleagues at our weekly HQ happy hours, celebrations for special cultural events, and casual meet-ups for sports, music, outdoor activities, and more