Staff Engineer, Data Platform
Lila Sciences5 months ago
Base Salary
$192k - $272k/yr
Responsibilities
- Set the technical direction and architecture for core data infrastructure.
- Design and evolve systems that ingest, store, transform, and serve data across scientific and ML workflows.
- Build reliable ingestion pipelines for laboratory instruments, public scientific datasets, and external research literature.
- Own interfaces between upstream data producers and downstream consumers.
- Operate and extend workflow orchestration systems for complex scientific pipelines.
- Establish observability, fault tolerance, and reproducibility across the data stack.
- Define data models, schema evolution practices, and data contracts.
- Partner with ML researchers, lab scientists, and product engineers to translate requirements into platform capabilities.
- Establish coding, review, and design standards for the data platform team.
- Mentor engineers, lead design reviews, and raise the technical bar across the group.
Requirements
- Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
- 8+ years of experience as a software or data engineer focused on building and operating data infrastructure.
- Experience designing and shipping ingestion frameworks, storage abstractions, and orchestration systems from the ground up.
- Fluency in Python and SQL with the ability to write production-quality code.
- Production experience with relational and NoSQL databases, schema design, query optimization, and operating systems at scale.
- Experience working with structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data.
- Experience with cloud infrastructure and containerized deployment using AWS and Kubernetes.
- Hands-on experience with modern table formats and open lakehouse patterns, including Iceberg, Delta Lake, and Hudi.
- Strong cross-functional experience translating requirements from scientists, ML researchers, and engineers into platform decisions.
- Bonus: experience with Flyte, Airflow, Dagster, or similar workflow orchestration systems.
- Bonus: experience building data infrastructure for agentic and LLM-driven workflows, including vector databases, RAG infrastructure, and retrieval-optimized data access patterns.
- Bonus: background in scientific computing, life sciences, or research software.
- Bonus: proficiency with AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor or Claude Code.
Benefits
- Medical, dental, and vision coverage for full-time U.S. employees
- Employer-paid life and disability insurance
- Flexible time off and generous company-wide holidays
- Paid parental leave
- Educational assistance program
- Commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office-based employees
- Company-subsidized lunch program
- Regionally tailored benefits for full-time employees outside the U.S.
Tech Stack
Categories
BackendData Engineering
About Lila Sciences
Lila Sciences builds an AI-driven research platform and autonomous lab systems for life science, chemistry, and materials R&D teams. Its products combine large AI models with robotic instruments to plan, run, and analyze experiments, integrating into customer-specific scientific workflows. The privately held company serves pharma, materials, and energy organizations and is venture-backed, including a Series A financing in 2025.