Principal Full-Stack Engineer

Location: San Francisco, CA

Department: Engineering

About

Edison Scientific builds and commercializes AI agents for science. Scientific discovery moves too slowly, and autonomous AI agents are how we intend to fix that. We're assembling a team of top researchers and engineers across AI and biology to build an AI scientist.

Role

As a Principal Full-Stack Engineer (Backend-Focused) you’ll play a key role in shaping and scaling our core platform that automates scientific discovery. You’ll work across the stack, with a strong emphasis on backend systems- designing and evolving services, APIs, data pipelines, and infrastructure- while also contributing to critical user-facing workflows.

Our mission is to build an AI scientist, and you’ll help define and build the tools, interfaces, and data systems it relies on. This role goes beyond implementation: you’ll influence architectural direction, establish engineering best practices, and partner closely with frontend engineers, designers, and researchers to deliver robust, end-to-end solutions.

At Edison Scientific, full-stack engineering at the senior level is about technical ownership and leverage- understanding how complex systems interact, making sound architectural tradeoffs, and building foundations that allow teams and science to move faster.

This role is on-site at our San Francisco office in the Dogpatch neighborhood. Our office is a converted warehouse with high ceilings, open space, and a team that genuinely believes in what they're building.

This position is part of the Platform team. 

Responsibilities

• Architect, design, implement, and maintain backend services, APIs, and databases that power the scientific discovery platform.
• Drive technical decisions across the stack, balancing scalability, reliability, security, and developer velocity.
• Lead the design and evolution of data pipelines supporting AI agents and research workflows.
• Contribute to and review frontend features and workflows, ensuring seamless integration with backend systems.
• Establish and uphold best practices around testing, monitoring, observability, and incident response.
• Troubleshoot complex, cross-system issues and guide others through effective debugging and remediation.
• Collaborate closely with engineering, design, and research teams to scope, plan, and ship new AI-driven capabilities.
• Mentor and support other engineers, raising the technical bar and fostering a strong engineering culture.
• Act as a trusted technical partner in a highly collaborative team working at the frontier of AI for science.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with significant experience across backend systems and full-stack development.
• Deep proficiency in one or more backend languages (e.g., Python, Node.js), with a strong track record of designing production systems.
• Extensive experience designing, building, and evolving APIs (FastAPI, REST; GraphQL a plus).
• Strong working knowledge of modern frontend frameworks (e.g., React, Next.js) and how frontend and backend systems interact at scale.
• Expertise with relational and/or document databases (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, or similar), including schema design and performance considerations.
• Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerized environments (Docker; Kubernetes preferred).
• Proven experience building and maintaining CI/CD pipelines, automated testing strategies, and observability systems.
• Ability to operate autonomously, make sound technical judgments, and drive projects from concept through production.
• Strong communication skills and experience collaborating across disciplines in fast-moving environments.

Bonus points for

• Experience with data-intensive platforms, scientific computing, or ML/AI infrastructure.
• Prior experience in startups or small teams with significant architectural ownership and ambiguity.
• Experience scaling systems, teams, or platforms through periods of rapid growth.

Salary

$200,000- $350,000  •  Offers equity

Why join us?

• Competitive salary and equity
• Full healthcare coverage — we pay 100% of premiums for you and your dependents
• Support for growing families, including a yearly new parent stipend and fertility coverage through Carrot
• 401(k) company matching
• $300 health and wellness benefit
• Lunch is on us every day you're in the office, and dinner is on us when you're working late
• Regular team offsites and company events
• A fast-moving, mission-driven culture where smart people do their best work and actually enjoy doing it