Job Description

Who is Recruiting from Scratch:

Recruiting from Scratch is a premier talent firm that focuses on placing the best product managers, software, and hardware talent at innovative companies. Our team is 100% remote and we work with teams across the United States to help them hire.

Member of Technical Staff, Senior Full-Stack Engineer (Backend-Focused)

Location

San Francisco Bay Area, California — preferred

New York City, NY or Greater Boston, MA also listed as eligible locations

Work Arrangement: Hybrid — 3 days in-office per week, Tuesday–Thursday; Monday and Friday are flexible

Position: Full-time

Company Stage: Seed-stage, approximately $70M seed funding

Team Size: Approximately 5 engineers

Experience: 3–10 years of software engineering experience

Compensation: $175,000–$240,000 base + competitive equity

Visa: Open to eligible visa transfers, including OPT and H-1B transfers.

Company Description

We are building an AI scientist designed to accelerate scientific discovery, with an initial focus on pharmaceutical research and medicine. Our platform runs hundreds of research tasks in parallel, helping scientists explore complex questions and turn months of research into a single, coordinated workflow.

Backed by approximately $70 million in seed funding from leading investors, the company is developing AI technology for scientific research and working toward full deployments with major pharmaceutical companies. As the platform expands to support enterprise customers, the engineering team is focused on building reliable, scalable infrastructure that enables AI-driven research workflows.

You'll join a small, technically strong team where engineers work closely with scientists, researchers, product teams, and forward-deployed engineers. This is an opportunity to take meaningful ownership of backend-heavy features, contribute across the stack, and build production systems at the intersection of AI and scientific discovery.

What You Will Do

• Build core backend systems: Design, build, and maintain Python backend services, APIs, databases, and data pipelines that power AI agents and scientific research workflows.
• Own features end-to-end: Take features from initial design through implementation, testing, deployment, and production operation.
• Contribute across the stack: Work on frontend functionality in collaboration with design and frontend teammates while maintaining a strong backend focus.
• Build scalable APIs: Design and implement reliable APIs and services that support complex research workflows and enterprise deployments.
• Work with AI agents: Develop backend capabilities that enable AI agents to run research tasks and support scientific discovery.
• Collaborate across teams: Partner with research, forward-deployed, and product teams to ship new AI-driven features.
• Improve reliability and observability: Add monitoring, observability, automated testing, and other safeguards as the platform scales.
• Support enterprise deployments: Help ensure the platform is reliable and production-ready as major pharmaceutical customers come on board.
• Contribute to architecture: Make thoughtful decisions around system design, data modeling, infrastructure, and API architecture.
• Operate with ownership: Work independently on meaningful engineering problems within a small team and take responsibility for delivering outcomes.

Ideal Candidate Background

Required Experience

• 3–10 years of professional software engineering experience, ideally within the 5–8-year range for a senior-level candidate.
• Strong hands-on backend or full-stack engineering skills, with a clear backend focus.
• Strong proficiency in Python and experience with JavaScript and/or TypeScript.
• Experience designing and consuming scalable APIs, including REST or comparable API architectures.
• Experience building and operating production software.
• Understanding of system architecture, data modeling, distributed systems, and cloud infrastructure.
• Experience taking features from initial concept through implementation and deployment.
• Strong problem-solving skills and the ability to work through ambiguous technical requirements.
• Experience working in a fast-moving product or startup environment.
• Willingness to work in a hybrid arrangement, with three days per week in the office.

Technical Skills

Core Engineering

• Python backend development.
• JavaScript and TypeScript.
• Backend-focused full-stack development.
• API design and integration.
• System architecture and data modeling.
• Production operations, monitoring, testing, and reliability.

Relevant Technologies

• Backend frameworks: FastAPI and comparable Python frameworks.
• API technologies: REST and GraphQL.
• Frontend: React and Next.js.
• Databases: PostgreSQL and MongoDB.
• Infrastructure: CI/CD and infrastructure tooling.
• Systems: Distributed systems, scalable services, and production data pipelines.

Candidates do not need experience with every technology listed. Prioritize strong backend engineering, practical API design, system architecture, and the ability to build and operate reliable production systems.

Preferred Background

• Experience at strong engineering organizations or technically demanding startups.
• Experience at AI-native companies or companies building AI-powered products.
• Experience building backend systems for complex data-intensive applications.
• Experience working with APIs, databases, and distributed systems at scale.
• Experience with Python frameworks such as FastAPI.
• Experience building frontend functionality with React or Next.js.
• Experience with production infrastructure, CI/CD, monitoring, and observability.
• Experience collaborating with research, product, or customer-facing engineering teams.
• Experience supporting enterprise customers or scaling a product toward large deployments.
• A consistent employment history demonstrating ownership and progression.

Working Style and Culture

• Product-minded engineering: Understands customer needs and builds practical, useful solutions.
• End-to-end ownership: Takes responsibility for features from design through production.
• Strong backend fundamentals: Can design APIs, model data, and build reliable services.
• Startup mindset: Comfortable working in a small team where priorities evolve quickly.
• Bias toward execution: Moves quickly from problem definition to implementation and delivery.
• Collaboration: Works closely with researchers, product teams, and other engineers.
• Reliability-focused: Understands the importance of testing, monitoring, and observability as usage scales.
• Adaptability: Can contribute across backend, frontend, and infrastructure when needed.
• Long-term ownership: Invests in building maintainable systems rather than only delivering short-term fixes.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $175,000–$240,000.
• Equity: Competitive equity.
• Work arrangement: Hybrid, three days per week in-office.
• Location flexibility: San Francisco Bay Area preferred; New York City and Greater Boston are also listed.
• Health coverage: 100% of health insurance premiums covered for employees and their families.
• Parental leave: 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
• Relocation: The intake notes mention a potential relocation bonus of $10,000–$15,000; confirm availability with the hiring team.
• Ownership and impact: Opportunity to own backend-heavy features and contribute directly to the platform behind an AI scientist.
• Scientific impact: Work closely with researchers on AI technology designed to accelerate scientific discovery.

Why Join?

• Build an AI scientist: Help develop the platform behind an AI system that runs hundreds of research tasks in parallel.
• Accelerate scientific discovery: Work on technology focused on pharmaceutical research and medicine.
• Join a well-funded team: Contribute to a company backed by approximately $70 million in seed funding.
• Own meaningful features: Take backend-heavy projects from idea to production within a small engineering team.
• Work with researchers: Collaborate closely with scientists, research teams, product engineers, and forward-deployed engineers.
• Solve real production challenges: Help scale the platform as major pharmaceutical deployments progress.
• Build across the stack: Develop backend services while contributing to frontend functionality and infrastructure.
• Receive competitive compensation and benefits: Earn $175,000–$240,000 in base salary, plus equity, comprehensive health coverage, and paid parental leave.