Staff Software Engineer

Staff Software Engineer

Our client is a seed-stage healthcare/life-sciences company building AI agents that automate clinical trial workflows — attacking one of the biggest bottlenecks in drug development. Backed by $7M+ in funding, the platform is already used across 400+ research sites. This is a founding tech-lead role on a small, high-impact engineering team.

The role: A hands-on Staff Software Engineer (8+ yrs) to be the technical anchor of a small team — writing and reviewing code daily while mentoring three junior engineers and establishing engineering best practices, and partnering with product, customer success, and founders to ship zero-to-one AI-powered products.

Responsibilities

• Own and build AI-powered products end-to-end (agentic workflows, LLM features with production evals)
• Technical lead and mentor for three junior engineers; set best practices for code review and process
• Partner with CTO, PM, and customer success to shape zero-to-one products
• Architect and deliver full-stack apps across frontend, backend, infra, and data pipelines

Must-have

• Tech lead / technical anchor experience on an engineering team
• Full-stack product engineer who owns features end-to-end (backend-leaning generalists welcome)
• Mentor / bar-raiser able to establish engineering best practices
• 8–15 yrs full-stack product engineering, building AI/LLM features
• Zero-to-one, customer-facing product background (not deep infra)
• Recent (1–2 yrs) hands-on shipping of LLM features / AI agents in production

Nice-to-have

• Mix of startup (seed–Series B, founding/early hire) and larger-company experience
• CS degree or equivalent
• Production AI evals / LLM observability (LangSmith, Braintrust, W&B); multi-step agentic pipelines
• Genuine interest in bio, life sciences, or healthcare

Compensation & logistics

• Base salary: $210K–$260K, flexible for exceptional candidates
• Equity: 1–1.5%
• Full-time, hybrid: 3 days/week in-office (Mon, Tue, Thu), Financial District, San Francisco
• Visa: open to transfers (e.g., OPT, H-1B transfers); no new sponsorships
• Interview process: 3 steps — 30-min intro call, virtual system design interview, final on-site (technical + behavioral + team lunch)