Head of Software Engineering

Responsibilities

• Owning the engineering roadmap — deciding what to build, what to defer, and what to kill
• Setting technical direction and architecture across frontend, backend, data pipelines, and lab‑hardware integration
• Shipping code yourself on the highest‑leverage problems, not just reviewing it
• Hiring, growing, and setting the bar for a team that ships fast and holds quality high — our lab runs on this software, so when things break, real experiments fail and real customers are affected
• Building the team's AI‑assisted development practices into a genuine speed advantage

• You’ve shipped production software for years and you’re not looking to leave the code behind — you want a role where you build and lead at the same time.
• You’ve hired, managed, and developed engineers, and built a team that ships fast and holds a high bar — at least once before, in a startup or high‑growth environment.
• You’ve owned or significantly shaped an engineering roadmap. You’ve made the call on what to build, defer, and kill — and you make pragmatic tradeoffs that keep things shipping and stop projects from growing out of scope.
• You make good architectural decisions across frontend, backend, data, and infrastructure, and you know when to go deep versus when to delegate.
• It’s 2026 — you already build with AI agents and coding tools as a force multiplier, and you have a real point of view on how they change team structure, tooling, and workflow.
• A genuine interest in biology. No background required, but our product is running biology experiments in the physical world and that should excite you.
• High‑autonomy, founder mindset. We share context and vision openly. You figure out what matters most and go work on it.