Staff/Principal Engineer, Search & Retrieval
Lila Sciences · San Francisco, CA USA · San Francisco, CA
Bio & Science AIonsitestaff$224k–$336k
At a glance
Highlights
- Own how scientists and agents query literature, patents, and lab records.
- Build autonomous research loop delivering traceable, cited answers.
- Define shared retrieval foundation used across scientific workloads.
Ideal candidate
Deeply technical owner who thrives amid ambiguity and moves fast. You care about building trustworthy AI for science and shaping foundational systems with high autonomy.
Requirements
- 8+ years software development with production ownership of search, retrieval, RAG or knowledge graph system
- Production experience with semantic search, hybrid lexical-vector retrieval and reranking
- Track record in high-growth environments balancing speed-to-value with long-term architecture
- Experience measuring retrieval quality and catching regressions
- Hands-on Python with modern backend frameworks including FastAPI and async Python
- Experience with cloud-native architectures including Kubernetes, Terraform and AWS
- Strong cross-functional communication and architectural influence
- BS, MS or PhD in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience
Lab profile
About Lila Sciences
Building an autonomous science platform where AI, automation, and biology co-evolve for medicine and materials.
What they build
- Autonomous Science Platform
- AI-designed biologics validated in wet-lab
- Electro-optic materials and photonic devices
Known for
- Large-scale automated data generation
- High-throughput protein purification and analytics
- Protein design and BioML modeling
- Robotic orchestration and lab simulation
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