Backend Software Engineer, Python

Proteins are the molecular machines of life, used for many therapeutic, diagnostic, chemical, agricultural and food applications. Designing and optimizing proteins takes a lot of expert knowledge and manual effort, through the use of custom computational and biological tools.

Machine learning is revolutionizing this space, by enabling high-fidelity protein models. At Cradle, we offer a software platform for AI-guided discovery and optimization of proteins, so that biologists can design proteins faster and at scale. We are already used by clients across biopharma, biotech, agri-tech, food-tech, and academia.

We're an experienced team of just over 100 people. We've built many successful products before and have enough funding for multiple years of runway. We are distributed across three offices in Amsterdam, Boston, and Zurich, alongside a few remote colleagues.

We offer our employees a very competitive salary, a generous equity stake in the company and a wide range of benefits and career progression opportunities.

We're looking for Backend Software Engineers who are excited to peek out of the virtual world and join us on designing a platform for optimizing biological systems! Be ready to witness first hand what happens when you leave the bits and bytes behind and try to solve challenges with nature’s constraints and complexity.

As a Backend Engineer, you will be responsible for designing and developing a service-oriented decoupled web application, which exposes our advanced machine learning models to scientific end users.
By way of some examples, this means:

• Architecting the ways in which we manipulate and store data, e.g. with consideration for how to efficiently store and represent protein sequences and associated metadata, machine learning model predictions, etc.

• Architecting the APIs across which we interact with machine learning models, e.g. with consideration for how to version access over time.

• Collaborating with biologists, machine learning experts, and scientists alike, and becoming skilled in working in their domains.

We are looking for some selection of the following skills:

• You are a fast learner. You can rapidly absorb whatever the problem requires, whether that is a new programming language, an ML algorithm, or biological concept.

• You are action oriented and derive true satisfaction from getting things done.

• Experience in developing back-end systems in a modern cloud environment.

• The Python programming language and its ecosystem.

• Familiarity with database system architecture and data warehouses.

• You are kind and work well in teams. We look for team players and excellent communicators who contribute to a positive and friendly working environment.

Cradle evaluates all candidates based on merit, regardless of sex, gender, ethnicity, socio-economic background, or any other aspect of identity. We maintain zero tolerance for discrimination and actively encourage candidates from all backgrounds to apply.

Cradle uses an applicant tracking system that includes basic AI-assisted features which may generate scores or rankings based on how applications match a job description. These outputs are not used to make or meaningfully influence hiring decisions — all candidates are evaluated through a thorough, human-led review by our recruiting team.

Please be aware that scammers are posing as us in order to get your personal details or money. We only communicate via @cradle.bio email addresses, we only make job offers after having met you in person at our office in Zurich or Amsterdam, and we never ask you to pay for anything during the interview process.