Senior Software Engineer, Applied AI
Lila Sciences is seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join their Applied AI group, focusing on building the next generation of their AI-driven scientific platform. This role involves designing and optimizing backend systems, data pipelines, and AI integrations that power intelligent, data-driven applications. The engineer will work at the intersection of backend engineering and machine learning, ensuring the platform scales seamlessly and supports advanced applied AI techniques such as Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), agentic AI, and large language model (LLM) integration.
Key responsibilities include designing and deploying backend services and data pipelines that support advanced AI applications, including LLMs, RAG, and agentic frameworks. The engineer will build high-performance APIs and microservices to enable seamless integration between AI models, scientific tools, and user-facing applications. Additionally, they will architect and manage scalable pipelines capable of handling structured, unstructured, and vectorized data for AI/ML workloads, and implement and optimize SQL, NoSQL, and vector databases to support low-latency AI retrieval and inference workloads.
The ideal candidate will have a Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, with over 7 years of professional experience building and scaling production systems, including APIs, data pipelines, and distributed services. Strong Python skills (FastAPI, Flask, Django) are essential, along with solid experience in backend service development. Proven experience with SQL, NoSQL, and vector databases, as well as hands-on experience integrating ML models or AI-driven workflows into production services, is required. Proficiency with AWS, Docker/Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, and infrastructure-as-code is also necessary.
Lila Sciences offers competitive compensation, including bonus potential and generous early equity. The expected base salary range for this role is between $144,000 and $270,000 USD. 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.
Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or veteran status. The company is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges, combining advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously. This approach accelerates discovery across medicine, materials, and energy at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact.