Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead

About Tamarind Bio We enable any scientist to access AI-powered drug discovery. Thousands of scientists from large pharma companies, top biotechs, and academic institutions use Tamarind to design protein drugs, improve industrial enzymes, and create cutting edge molecules that weren’t feasible until now. New AI models are quickly eclipsing physics-based tools in computational drug discovery. Scientists often struggle to fine-tune, deploy, and scale these models, leaving breakthroughs on the table. Tamarind provides a simple interface to the vast array of tools being released daily. Staff Software Engineer / Technical Lead We're hiring a Staff Software Engineer to provide technical leadership across our engineering team as we continue to scale the platform behind Tamarind. Today, our engineering team consists primarily of early and mid-career engineers. As the complexity of our systems and customer requirements continues to grow, we're looking for someone who can help guide technical decision-making, mentor engineers, and drive architectural discussions across the organization. This is not an engineering management role. We're looking for a hands-on technical leader who enjoys writing code, reviewing designs, solving difficult engineering problems, and helping other engineers grow. You'll work closely with the CTO to shape technical direction while remaining deeply involved in execution. The role spans architecture, infrastructure, product development, code reviews, technical mentorship, and engineering best practices. What You'll Do Partner with the CTO on architecture, technical planning, and major engineering initiativesProvide technical guidance across a team of 7-8 engineersLead design reviews and architectural discussionsHelp engineers navigate complex technical challengesContribute directly to the codebase across infrastructure, backend services, APIs, and product developmentReview code and provide feedback on implementation approachesIdentify opportunities to improve reliability, scalability, performance, and developer productivitySupport technical decision-making across new products and platform capabilitiesWork closely with customers and internal stakeholders to understand requirements and translate them into practical solutionsHelp establish engineering standards as the team continues to grow Week in the Life Collaborate with the CTO on technical priorities and architectural decisionsReview designs and provide guidance on implementation approachesBuild and operate services across infrastructure, ML systems, APIs, and customer-facing applicationsParticipate in code reviews and technical discussionsHelp unblock engineers working through difficult technical problemsWork directly with customers to understand requirements and gather feedbackBalance hands-on engineering work with technical leadership responsibilities Ideal Qualifications 7+ years of software engineering experienceExperience serving as a senior technical contributor, staff engineer, principal engineer, or technical leadStrong software architecture and distributed systems experienceExperience building and operating production infrastructure and cloud servicesAWS experience (EC2, S3, DynamoDB, Docker, etc.)Ability to mentor engineers and provide technical guidance across multiple projectsStrong communication skills and sound engineering judgmentComfort operating in an early-stage startup environmentWillingness to work onsite in San Francisco Technology Our technology sits at the intersection of DevOps, MLOps, and Computational Biology. We support workloads ranging from large-scale ML inference and model deployment to workflow orchestration across research, infrastructure, and scientific computing environments. The role requires someone who enjoys moving between architecture, implementation, operations, and mentorship while helping a growing engineering team tackle increasingly complex technical challenges.