Staff Engineer, Data Platform
Lila SciencesCambridge, Massachusetts, United States · Posted 2 months agoDescription
Your Impact at LILA
Lila Sciences is building the software platform that makes automated scientific discovery possible. At the heart of that platform is data: raw outputs from laboratory instruments, experimental model results, curated public datasets, and the scientific literature that contextualizes all of it. The data platform team is responsible for the infrastructure that moves, stores, transforms, and surfaces this data across the organization.
We are looking for a Staff Engineer to set the technical direction for our core data infrastructure: ingestion frameworks, storage architecture, orchestration patterns, and the interfaces that let scientists and ML researchers work with data reliably at scale. You will work closely with software engineers, machine learning researchers, and lab scientists to understand requirements and translate them into durable platform capabilities.
This is a role for engineers who care deeply about how data systems are designed. You will establish the architectural patterns and engineering standards the broader team builds on, mentor engineers across the data platform group, and make technical decisions that compound over time.
What You'll Be Building
- Data Platform Architecture: Design and evolve the core data infrastructure that ingests, stores, and serves data across scientific and ML workflows. Make principled build-vs-buy decisions and establish architectural patterns adopted by the broader engineering organization.
- Ingestion and Integration: Build reliable pipelines that bring in data from diverse sources: laboratory instruments, public scientific datasets, and external research literature. Own the interfaces between upstream producers and downstream consumers.
- Orchestration and Reliability: Operate and extend workflow orchestration systems that run complex, multi-step scientific pipelines. Ensure observability, fault tolerance, and reproducibility across the data stack.
- Data Modeling and Schema Strategy: Define and maintain data models, schema evolution practices, and data contracts that ensure consistency, discoverability, and long-term durability of scientific and platform data assets.
- Cross-Functional Technical Leadership: Partner with ML researchers, lab scientists, and product engineers to translate scientific and research requirements into platform capabilities. Drive alignment on data standards and integration patterns across teams.
- Engineering Standards and Mentorship: Establish coding, review, and design standards for the data platform team. Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and raise the technical bar across the group.
What You’ll Need to Succeed
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, and 8+ years as a software or data engineer with a focus on building and operating data infrastructure.
- Designed and shipped data platform components from the ground up, including ingestion frameworks, storage abstractions, and orchestration systems. Fluent in Python and SQL and writes production-quality code.
- Production experience with relational and NoSQL databases, schema design, query optimization, and operational concerns at scale. Comfortable working across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.
- Proven track record of working cross-functionally with scientists, ML researchers, and engineers. Able to translate domain requirements into platform decisions and explain technical trade-offs to diverse audiences.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure and containerized deployment (AWS, Kubernetes).
- Hands-on experience with modern table formats and open lakehouse patterns (Iceberg, Delta Lake, Hudi).
Bonus Points For
- Experience with workflow orchestration systems (Flyte, Airflow, Dagster, or similar).
- Experience building data infrastructure that serves agentic and LLM-driven workflows, including vector databases, RAG infrastructure, and retrieval-optimized data access patterns.
- Background in scientific computing, life sciences, or research software.
- Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, or similar) and ability to incorporate them effectively into day-to-day engineering work.
Compensation
We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.
U.S. Benefits. 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.
International Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.
About LILA
Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.
LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.
Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.
We’re All In
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.
Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.
A Note to Agencies
Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.
Similar jobs
Est. 345,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila is seeking a highly motivated and experienced engineering leader to lead a team responsible for our Lila's product data platform. You will own the data platform and infrastructure end-to-end — ar…
Est. 216,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Senior Software Engineers with backend experience to join our Data Platform Team (Data), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, lab…
Est. 276,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Principal Software Engineers with backend experience to join our Data Platform Team (Data), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, l…
Est. 216,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We are seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join our Scientific System of Record Team and help build the next-generation AI-driven scientific platform. You will focus on developing user interfaces, se…
Est. 232,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA The Staff/Principal DevOps Engineer will drive the design, implementation, and optimization of our infrastructure and delivery platforms. This role bridges platform engineering, site reliability, and…
Est. 192,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Senior Software Engineers with full stack experience to join our Scientific System of Record Team (SSR), where you’ll collaborate with software…
Est. 259,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is seeking a Research Engineer, Scientific Computing and ML/Physics Infrastructure to help turn promising research tools into robust, scalable systems. This role bridges research and pro…
Est. 207,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Applied AI group and help build the next generation of our AI-driven scientific platform. In this role, you will design and optimize the backend s…
Est. 224,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Staff Software Engineers with backend experience to join our Lab Software Team (LaS), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, lab sci…
Est. 177,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking Senior Software Engineers with backend experience to join our Lab Software Team (LaS), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, lab sc…
Est. 192,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Scientists shouldn't have to context-switch between a dozen tools to go from hypothesis to result. We're building the platform that makes this a reality — and we need engineers who want to solve probl…
Est. 150,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Join us in shaping the future of science! We are seeking a Software Engineer II with backend experience to join our Lab Software Team (LaS), where you’ll collaborate with software engineers, lab scien…
Est. 276,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We are seeking a Senior Principal or Principal Software Engineer, Scientific System of Record to join our Scientific System of Record Team and help define and build the next-generation AI-driven scien…
Est. 218,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We are a cross-functional team (Software and Robotics) developing orchestration algorithms (instrument scheduling and robot routing) and lab simulation capabilities. We are building the muscles of the…
Est. 218,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is building the infrastructure for autonomous science - AI systems that design experiments, run them in physical labs, and close the loop across life sciences, chemistry, and materials s…
Est. 257,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is building the infrastructure for autonomous science — AI systems that design experiments, run them in physical labs, and close the loop across life sciences, chemistry, and materials s…
Est. 276,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Scientists shouldn't have to context-switch between a dozen tools to go from hypothesis to result. We're building the platform that makes this a reality — and we need engineers who want to solve probl…
Est. 179,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We’re hiring a Senior Software Engineer to team with our Machine Learning Engineers and Researchers to build software that powers Lila’s ML workflows and research tooling. You will be on a team of sof…
Est. 192,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA You will build the back-end and data foundations of the systems that schedule work across our autonomous labs, model them as digital twins, and turn raw experimental output into trustworthy, queryable…
Est. 194,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We're building an AI-driven drug discovery factory that closes the loop between computational design and wet-lab experiment in days instead of months. The bottleneck for that loop is data: every compo…
Est. 345,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA As Lila scales its AI Science Factories globally, the VP of Engineering will create and sustain an engineering model for a unified, scalable platform for autonomous experimentation. This role will be…
Est. 173,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA This Machine Learning Engineer for the Physical Sciences team focuses on building and operating end-to-end, scalable machine learning workflows that solve a diversity scientific use cases in materials…
Est. 255,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Scientists shouldn't have to context-switch between a dozen tools to go from hypothesis to result. We're building the platform that makes this a reality — and we need engineering leaders who want to b…
Est. 232,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila is building toward scientific superintelligence, which depends on a steady supply of high-quality, purpose-built AI data. We're looking for a Senior or Principal Technical Program Manager to join…
Est. 237,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is seeking a Principal Software Engineer, Instrument Simulations to architect and lead the development of our next-generation laboratory automation platform. In this role, you'll be resp…
Est. 239,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We are growing our Applied AI org and seeking talented Senior/Staff Machine Learning Engineers with expertise in LLM training, evaluation, and production-oriented ML systems. You’ll work on improving…
Est. 124,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is hiring a Software Engineer to develop the next generation of Lab Instrument Integration Software, which is a foundational component of our AI-enabled laboratory. We are looking for se…
Est. 150,600 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila Sciences is seeking a highly skilled, hands-on Automated Systems Engineer to design, develop, and implement automation solutions across a broad range of laboratory workflows. Reporting to the Aut…
Est. 210,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA Lila is hiring a Senior Engineer II, Cloud Security to strengthen cloud and SaaS security across our infrastructure, platforms, and AI-enabled systems. This role owns hands-on security work across clo…
Est. 224,000 USD
Your Impact at LILA We're seeking extraordinarily talented Forward Deployed Engineers to join our growing team. Our FDEs are high-performing generalists with a broad set of skills across scientific domains and software e…