Staff Software Engineer
Job description
Staff Software Engineer
Tamarind Bio creates tools that accelerate protein drug discovery. We provide a platform where scientists access advanced AI models to design proteins, optimize industrial enzymes, and generate novel molecules. Our mission is to remove barriers that slow down discovery by connecting computational power with laboratory validation.
About the Role
You will guide Tamarind's platform strategy while remaining deeply involved in implementation. This position is not one of management but of technical leadership. You will work alongside the CTO to set priorities, define architecture, and ensure that engineering decisions serve both immediate product needs and long-term scalability. Your daily work will include writing code, reviewing designs, and helping engineers solve complex problems. You will translate scientific requirements into reliable infrastructure that supports researchers around the world.
Key Facts
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Location: USA
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Engagement: Full-time.
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Compensation: $180,000 to $260,000 USD per year.
Week in the Life
Your time will be split between hands-on development and technical oversight. You will collaborate with the CTO to define the roadmap for our infrastructure and services. You will review system designs, suggest improvements, and ensure that our architecture supports reliability and growth. Much of your work will involve building and operating the services that host our AI models, manage data, and drive laboratory workflows. You will participate in code reviews, lead technical discussions, and help unblock teammates when challenges arise. You will also interact directly with customers and internal teams to understand their needs and gather feedback that shapes our platform. Balancing execution with strategic thinking will be central to your role.
What You Will Do
- Partner with the CTO on architecture, technical planning, and major engineering initiatives.
- Provide technical guidance across a team of 7-8 engineers.
- Lead design reviews and architectural discussions focused on scalability and security.
- Help engineers navigate complex technical challenges in distributed systems and data-heavy workloads.
- Contribute directly to the codebase across infrastructure, backend services, APIs, and product development.
- Review code and provide feedback on implementation approaches and best practices.
- Identify opportunities to improve reliability, scalability, performance, and developer productivity.
- Support technical decision-making for new products and platform capabilities.
- Work closely with customers and internal stakeholders to translate requirements into practical solutions.
- Help establish engineering standards as the team continues to grow.
Ideal Qualifications
- 7 or more years of software engineering experience.
- Experience serving as a senior technical contributor, staff engineer, principal engineer, or technical lead.
- Strong software architecture and distributed systems experience.
- Experience building and operating production infrastructure and cloud services.
- AWS experience, including EC2, S3, DynamoDB, and Docker.
- Ability to mentor engineers and provide technical guidance across multiple projects.
- Strong communication skills and sound engineering judgment.
- Comfort operating in an early-stage startup environment.
- Willingness to work onsite in San Francisco.
Technology
Our technology stack sits at the intersection of DevOps, MLOps, and Computational Biology. We support workloads that range from large-scale ML inference and model deployment to workflow orchestration across research, infrastructure, and scientific computing environments. This role requires comfort moving between architecture, implementation, operations, and mentorship.
Requirements
- You bring 7 or more years building software in complex environments.
- You have hands-on experience leading staff-level technical decisions across teams.
- You understand distributed systems and designing services that manage heavy data loads.
- You maintain production cloud infrastructure, working with EC2, S3, DynamoDB, and Docker.
- You operate AWS environments, configuring networks, storage, and secure access patterns.
- You communicate clearly, explaining intricate systems to both engineers and executives.
- You thrive in a startup setting, navigating ambiguity while maintaining high quality.
- You work onsite in San Francisco, aligning schedules with the team regularly.
Nice to Have
No specific additional skills are listed as required.
Skills & Tools
Skills and tools are defined by the systems and languages used in the daily performance of this role.
Practical Notes
Please What you'll do