Senior Software Engineer

About Satomic

Satomic’s mission is to close the gap from idea to molecule with faster navigation of chemical space. We are building an automated chemistry platform that integrates laboratory robotics, software, and AI to transform small‑molecule synthesis and drug discovery.

Satomic has raised a $15M seed from investors including Riot Ventures, HOF Capital, and Compound VC. Our team includes alumni from leading large pharmas, small biotechs, and AI labs.

About The Role

This is a senior, hands‑on engineering role on the Development team. You’ll build, not manage, a team. Your focus will be on the core software platform at the center of Satomic’s chemistry operations: orchestration, internal tooling, and data systems that move a synthesis request from intake through execution to result.

You’ll collaborate closely with the hiring manager, automation engineers, chemists, and ML/cheminformatics teams. The scope you own will grow as the platform evolves.

A strong full‑stack engineer who owns problems end‑to‑end is required. You should design services and APIs, model data flows, and build interfaces for operators and scientists. You’ll drive architectural decisions that maintain system correctness as the platform expands, covering request orchestration, job scheduling, data capture, and internal web tools.

We value engineers whose craft is not tied to a single language. Day‑to‑day, the role is primarily Python on the backend and TypeScript/React on the frontend, but you should be fluent across the stack and ready to pick up languages such as Rust, Go, or C++ when needed.

Technologies And Systems You May Work With

• Python backend and TypeScript/React frontend, with flexibility to choose the right tool for the problem
• Relational databases and SQL (Postgres), data pipelines, and event‑driven systems that move data through the platform
• REST/gRPC APIs, message queues, and distributed systems design for experiment orchestration and platform control
• Cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, Azure), infrastructure‑as‑code, CI/CD, observability, and testing frameworks
• Integration with laboratory automation systems, ML/conversion models, and the cheminformatics search engine

Expected Outcomes

By Day 30

• Develop a working understanding of the platform end‑to‑end, including the flow from intake through automated synthesis to result and identify software seams and pain points.
• Ship meaningful improvements or features into production, with tests and documentation.
• Engage with the existing roadmap, identify near‑term priorities, and flag dependencies and risks.

By Day 90

• Deliver at least one core service or system component that other teams build against, with a clear interface and solid understanding of failure modes.
• Establish or strengthen engineering practices around your work (testing, deployment, observability) to help the team move faster.
• See your work run under real production load as the platform begins shipping deliveries to customers.
• Partner with automation and chemistry teams to ensure structured, traceable data throughout the systems you work on.

By Year 1

• Become the primary owner of a major platform surface area and make architectural decisions independently.
• Keep those systems reliable as chemistry and automation requirements shift, evolving the architecture to stay robust.
• Raise the engineering bar on the team through the systems you build, code reviews, and practice establishment.

By Year 5

• Become a recognized technical leader within Satomic, shaping how the company builds software and mentoring strong engineers.
• Build core platform systems that scale across multiple generations of chemistry capability without accruing architectural debt.
• Make the software platform a durable competitive advantage in how Satomic runs chemistry at scale.

What You Will Own

• Design, implement, and operate core platform services, APIs, and the orchestration layer behind Satomic’s "API to Atoms."
• The data model and data systems that capture, track, and expose platform activity, collaborating with data producers and consumers.
• Internal tooling that operators, chemists, and other engineers depend on for daily work.
• Engineering quality and operation of the systems you work on: testing, deployment, infrastructure‑as‑code, observability, production operations, and architectural decisions that maintain correctness.
• Proactive discovery of platform needs, working directly with chemistry and automation teams to surface new features and improvements.
• Technical judgment calls (build‑vs‑buy, complexity allocation, abstraction commitment) for your area of the platform, coordinated with the broader Development team on shared infrastructure.

This Role Is

• A senior, hands‑on role building core software systems on Satomic’s platform.
• A full‑stack software engineering role (backend services, data, and frontend) where systems thinking, sound architecture, and the ability to own problems end‑to‑end matter.
• A role where you operate what you build, with infrastructure and on‑call shared across the team as the platform matures.

This Role Is NOT

• A cheminformatics or chemistry‑domain engineering role. That work is owned elsewhere on the team; chemistry curiosity is welcome, but a chemistry background is not required.
• A pure ML or model‑training position.
• A single‑language specialist role. We want an engineer whose skill transfers across the stack and languages.
• A write‑the‑code‑and‑hand‑it‑off role. You operate what you build alongside the team, rather than delegating it for someone else to run.

Qualifications

• 5+ years building and operating production software, with demonstrated ownership of end‑to‑end systems.
• Strong software engineering fundamentals: data modeling, API and service design, testing, and reliability reasoning.
• Strong Python (backend) and TypeScript/React (frontend) required, plus enthusiasm for learning new languages (Rust, Go, C++).
• Comfort reasoning about performance and making judgments about when performance matters.
• Track record of sound technical judgment and cross‑disciplinary collaboration.
• Solid knowledge of relational databases and SQL such as Postgres (schema design, query performance, data modeling).
• Experience designing and operating APIs and distributed systems (REST/gRPC, message queues) with sound service boundary judgment.
• Hands‑on experience with at least one major cloud platform (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and ownership of infrastructure‑as‑code, CI/CD, observability, and production operations.
• Bonus: experience building software at the intersection of the physical and digital world (lab automation, robotics, instrumentation, scientific data).

Overview Of Satomic's Interview Process

• Phone screen (15‑30 minutes): introductory call with the hiring manager.
• Technical phone screen (45 minutes): in‑depth conversation with an engineer.
• Core Interviews (3 × 45 minutes): coordinated block of interviews with team members.
• Take‑home assignment: scoped engineering problem representative of Satomic work.
• Final round: technical review of the take‑home submission and presentation of prior work.

Why Join Satomic

Join a team tackling frontier challenges in chemistry and the biggest bottleneck in drug discovery, with an opportunity to shape the future of how molecules are discovered and made.

Diversity & Inclusion

We know there is a serious lack of diversity in our industry, and we are committed to driving change. Our culture is built on inclusion, humility, humanity, and ingenuity, values that guide how we work and approach the challenges of scaling science.

Our mission carries responsibility; we care deeply about ensuring our platform is used for good. Building a diverse and thoughtful team gives us the best chance of delivering a platform that advances chemistry and drug discovery responsibly and with lasting positive impact on our world.

Compensation

Base salary: $150,000 – $185,000, along with meaningful equity ownership and competitive benefits. This role is in San Diego, CA.