Staff Software Engineer, Life Sciences

Department: AI Simulation

Location: United States

Compensation: $147.2K – $276K • Multiple Ranges

Employment Type: FullTime

About SandboxAQ

SandboxAQ is a high-growth company delivering AI solutions that address some of the world's greatest challenges. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) power advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, cybersecurity, and other sectors.

We are a global team that is tech-focused and includes experts in AI, chemistry, cybersecurity, physics, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and other specialties. The company emerged from Alphabet Inc. as an independent, growth capital-backed company in 2022, funded by leading investors and supported by a braintrust of industry leaders.

At SandboxAQ, we’ve cultivated an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and impact. By investing deeply in our people, we’re building a thriving, global workforce poised to tackle the world's epic challenges. Join us to advance your career in pursuit of an inspiring mission, in a community of like-minded people who value entrepreneurialism, ownership, and transformative impact.

The Opportunity

As a Staff Software Engineer within our AI Simulation group, you will act as the primary technical bridge between our core Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) and our most ambitious client contracts. This is a high-agency "builder" role designed for a resourceful generalist who thrives on autonomy and is passionate about tackling the hardest challenges in drug discovery and chemical simulation. You will be embedded directly with internal scientific delivery teams, operating at the frontiers of knowledge where fundamental research converges with practical, real-world impact.

Your central purpose is to ensure the technical enablement and success of our most critical partnerships. You will be expected to independently discern complex bottlenecks, architect custom solutions, and orchestrate compute at scale. Whether you are wrapping scientific application logic, managing massive data transformations, or integrating with Agentic systems, you will own the entire lifecycle of your deployments. This role demands a "startup" mindset: the seniority to lead a project's technical vision and the humility to execute any task necessary to move the mission forward.

Key Responsibilities

• Orchestrate Technical Delivery: Partner with scientific teams to audit workflows, diagnose technical blockers, and take full accountability for the end-to-end technical execution of client contracts.

• Architect and Develop Solutions: Design and deploy high-velocity code to extend existing tools, or build new frameworks for wrapping scientific logic and automating complex R&D workflows.

• Drive Cross-Functional Collaboration: Serve as the technical translator between non-technical researchers and product teams, validating proposed solutions and ensuring they meet rigorous scientific requirements.

• Scale and Optimize Infrastructure: Own the deployment and maintenance of cloud-based compute resources and data pipelines, ensuring stability and performance throughout the contract lifecycle.

• Pioneer Technical Integration: Lead the integration of internal core technologies, such as LQMs and Agentic systems, into bespoke client environments to solve major scientific challenges.

Essential Skills & Experience

• 7+ years of professional software development experience, with deep proficiency in Python and modern architectural patterns.

• Proven ability to operate independently in high-ambiguity environments, moving from ideation to functional code with high velocity.

• Hands-on experience with cloud orchestration (Kubernetes, Batch systems) and workflow management tools like Airflow.

• Technical expertise in building REST APIs, managing database systems (ORMs, schemas), and utilizing Infrastructure as Code (Terraform).

• Entrepreneurial mindset with a track record of shipping systems in fast-moving, customer-facing environments.

Highly Desired Skills & Experience

• Domain expertise in drug discovery, cheminformatics, or advanced materials.

• Experience delivering scientific code for R&D projects involving simulation or numerical optimization.

• Familiarity with High-Performance Computing (HPC), GPU programming, and optimization.

• Exposure to AI applications involving knowledge graphs, AI agents, or multi-agent systems.

Why Join Us?

We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.

• Compensation: Competitive base salary, performance-based incentives or bonuses (where applicable), and equity participation.

• Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents with generous employer premium contributions, retirement savings with company matching, paid parental leave, and inclusive family-building benefits.

• Work-Life Balance: Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.

• Career Development: Opportunities for continuous learning and growth through on-the-job development, cross-functional collaboration, and access to internal learning and development programs.

SandboxAQ Welcomes All

We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging and respect, where diverse perspectives are actively sought and valued. Our multidisciplinary environment provides ample opportunity for continuous growth - working alongside humble, empowered, and ambitious colleagues ready to tackle epic challenges.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

Accommodations: We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities in job application procedures for open roles. If you need such an accommodation, please let a member of our Recruiting team know.

Read: Guidance for candidates on using AI Tools in interviews