Software Development Engineer; Lab Technology

Our mission is to detect cancer early, when it can be cured. We are working to change the trajectory of cancer mortality and bring stakeholders together to adopt innovative, safe, and effective technologies that can transform cancer care.

We are a healthcare company, pioneering new technologies to advance early cancer detection. We have built a multi-disciplinary organization of scientists, engineers, and physicians and we are using the power of next-generation sequencing (NGS), population-scale clinical studies, and state-of-the-art computer science and data science to overcome one of medicine’s greatest challenges.

GRAIL is headquartered in the bay area of California, with locations in Washington, D.C., North Carolina, and the United Kingdom. It is supported by leading global investors and pharmaceutical, technology, and healthcare companies.

The Lab Software team builds and operates the core software systems that make these laboratories possible. We develop the software platform that orchestrates sample processing, provides real-time laboratory visibility, maintains complete sample traceability, and enables laboratory operators to confidently run complex workflows at scale.

Our systems sit at the intersection of software engineering, laboratory automation, and clinical operations. They must be highly reliable, fault tolerant, and compliant with GxP requirements while supporting continuous innovation and increasing laboratory throughput.

We re looking for a Senior or Staff Software Engineer to help shape the next generation of GRAIL s laboratory platform. Leveling will be determined based on experience and demonstrated impact.

This role is based in either in Durham NC or Menlo Park, California. Our Menlo Park office will move to Sunnyvale, California in Fall 2026. GRAIL offers a flexible work arrangement, with the ability to work from GRAIL s office or from home. Our current flexible work arrangement policy requires that a minimum of 60%, or 24 hours, of your total work week be on-site.

Your specific schedule, determined in collaboration with your manager, will align with team and business needs and could exceed the 60% requirement for the site. At our Menlo Park and Durham campus, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the key days where we encourage on-site presence to engage in events and on-site activities. You will work with your hiring leader to select the 3rd day in office.

We may also consider candidates in the UK as well for this role.

As a Staff Software Engineer, you ll design, build, and operate the software systems that power GRAIL s automated laboratories.

You ll work across services including laboratory workflow orchestration, LIMS, quality decision systems, and laboratory visibility tools that enable operators to safely process patient samples at scale.

The challenges you ll solve extend well beyond traditional backend software development. You ll collaborate closely with laboratory operators, scientists, automation engineers, and software engineers to understand complex laboratory workflows and build systems that remain reliable under real-world operating conditions.

This work requires balancing reliability, scalability, regulatory compliance, and operational simplicity. You ll design software that recovers gracefully from failures, supports 24-hour laboratory operations, improves operator efficiency, and enables the laboratory to continue evolving as new assays and technologies are introduced.

You ll help build resilient distributed systems that interact with physical laboratory equipment, support software-only disaster recovery, and continuously improve the intelligence and efficiency of the laboratory platform.

Most importantly, every improvement you make helps GRAIL process patient samples more reliably, efficiently, and at greater scale.

You Are Someone Who...

Simplifies complex systems

You enjoy breaking down complicated technical and operational problems into elegant, maintainable solutions. You understand that simplicity is often the key to building reliable systems.

Comfortable working across the full stack

You are happy to move between backend and frontend to solve a problem end to end.

Anticipates problems before they happen

You proactively identify technical and operational risks, designing systems that prevent failures instead of simply reacting to them.

Partners across disciplines

You enjoy working with scientists, laboratory operators, automation engineers, and fellow software engineers. You ask thoughtful questions, understand customer needs, and translate them into practical technical solutions.

Thrives in operational environments

You stay calm during production incidents, make sound engineering decisions under pressure, and take pride in building systems that operators can trust.

Accelerates development with AI tools

You routinely use AI-assisted development tools to improve productivity, testing, code quality, and documentation while exercising sound engineering…