Lead Platform Engineer

Lead Platform Engineer San Francisco, CA (onsite) Up to $300K + 1–2 % equity No Visas My client is a seed stage start up building the reasoning and data infrastructure to transform how biological research is conducted. Founded by two Yale cancer researchers, they exist to solve a massive problem: scientists spend 40–60% of their time wrangling scattered, heterogeneous lab data instead of doing actual science — costing the industry an estimated $28 billion a year in irretrievable, non-reproducible data. They builds the platform that transforms messy, scattered laboratory outputs into a unified, queryable knowledge base optimized for both scientists and AI agents. By making lab data machine-legible, Cortex enables frontier ML and agentic AI tools to be deployed over biological data for the first time — accelerating the path to life-saving treatments. They are backed by Long Journey Ventures and Caffeinated Capital, with a planned $8–10M raise in October 2026. They operate with a culture of high autonomy, deep technical ownership, and minimal bureaucracy. The team values direct communication, architectural rigor, and strong documentation. As a seed-stage company based in San Francisco's Jackson Square, this offers the intensity and impact of early-stage startup life — where every team member's contributions directly shape the product and the company's trajectory. What we're looking for: We need someone with 5+ years of experience (3+ for exceptional candidates) building and operating production backend infrastructure, data platforms, or distributed systems who can serve as our senior engineering anchor. You should be comfortable owning architectural vision, system design, security posture, and scaling of a foundational data platform — and have a track record of professionalizing early-stage infrastructure and instilling engineering rigor. Bonus points if you have a background in computational biology, biotech data systems, or experience guiding systems through SOC 2 or similar compliance frameworks. What you'll do: Own the architectural vision, execution, security posture, and scaling of our foundational data and execution layer — our core platform that transforms scattered laboratory data into a unified, queryable knowledge base for scientists and AI agents.Design, build, and maintain production data ingestion pipelines, APIs, microservices, and storage layers that normalize heterogeneous scientific inputs into a structured knowledge graph while preserving strict provenance.Manage production knowledge graphs (TypeDB/TypeQL) and vector search engines (Qdrant), enabling hybrid symbolic-and-semantic retrieval for agentic workloads.Architect high-concurrency platform services in Go alongside Python APIs, managing controlled agent write boundaries and isolated execution environments.Design security boundaries into the platform from first principles — including service-to-service authentication, tenant isolation, secrets management, encryption, and zero-trust principles — and own the technical security roadmap.Own cloud infrastructure (Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible), CI/CD automation (GitHub Actions), observability (OpenTelemetry, Prometheus), and establish SLOs and internal developer "Golden Paths."Set the technical bar for the engineering team — establish architectural patterns, conduct code reviews, mentor engineers, and help build and lead the platform engineering team over time.Partner with founders to shape the engineering team, interview candidates, and recruit platform engineers as the company scales post-fundraise. Requirements: Experience building production backend infrastructure, data platforms, or distributed systemsDeep proficiency in Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, and modern CI/CD runnersExperience designing ETL/ELT pipelines for complex, unstructured enterprise or scientific dataAbility to work 100% in- person in San Francisco, CA (5 days/week, relocation assistance available)Legal authorization to work in the United States (no visa sponsorship or transfer)3 - 8 years of experience as a platform or infrastructure engineerExperience at big tech companies or reputable startups with strong engineering reputations (AWS, Stripe, Ramp, Discord, Snowflake Why candidates should join Be the first platform hire and own the architecture: You won't inherit someone else's system. You'll design the foundational data and execution layer from scratch — APIs, orchestration, storage, security boundaries, and reliability. This is a true greenfield opportunity where your architectural decisions become the blueprint for everything that follows. Solve a $28B problem in biotech: Scientists lose 40–60% of their time wrangling scattered lab data instead of doing research. You'll build the infrastructure that transforms messy biological data into a unified knowledge base that powers AI agents — directly accelerating life-saving treatments. Meaningful equity at the right time: You'll get 1–2% equity with a planned raise in October targeting $8–10M. Joining before the raise means your equity is worth significantly more. Modern stack with zero legacy debt: You'll work with Go, Python/FastAPI, TypeDB, Qdrant, Kubernetes, Terraform, and OpenTelemetry. No legacy migrations. No decade-old monoliths. You pick the patterns and set the standards. Build and lead your own team: You'll help hire and mentor the platform engineering team — starting with a senior engineer, then mid-level and junior hires. You'll define the engineering culture, code review standards, and golden paths that shape how the team builds. Full benefits at seed stage: 100% covered health/dental/vision for you and dependents, 12 weeks paid parental leave, unlimited PTO, daily on-site meals, $2,500 learning budget, and up to $15K relocation support. That's unusually strong for a company this early.