Infrastructure & IT Systems Engineer

About Cellular Intelligence

Cellular Intelligence is building a universal foundation model for cell signaling to understand, predict, and ultimately control how cells behave, transforming biology from trial and error into an engineering discipline. A clinical-stage AI company, Cellular Intelligence holds the global rights to STEM-PD, an investigational Phase 2-ready cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease with FDA Fast Track designation, acquired from Novo Nordisk. The company’s founding team includes repeat AI entrepreneur Micha Breakstone, Ph.D. (Chorus.ai, acquired for $575M), the Head of the Fundamental AI Group at MIT, and five professors from Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Washington, collectively holding five National Academy memberships. Based in Boston, Cellular Intelligence has raised over $70M from Khosla Ventures, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Novo Nordisk, AMD Ventures, and others.

Cellular Intelligence’s Core Values

• We show up - fully accountable, all-in, doing whatever it takes.

• We act with urgency - swift, decisive, proactive.

• We support one another - collaborative, helpful, empathetic.

Location: Boston, MA, onsite, full-time

Reports to: Director of Bioinformatics

About the role:

We are looking for a hands-on Infrastructure & IT Systems Engineer to own and improve the internal systems and automation that keep CI’s research and company operations running, then grow into broader ownership of our engineering platform and infrastructure. The scope includes identity and access, endpoint and SaaS systems, internal automation, our AWS environment, research compute, CI/CD, production applications, and employee IT support.

CI is an AI-first company, and this is an AI-first role. We measure success by how much routine work you eliminate, not how many tickets you close. You will automate recurring operational work across IT and infrastructure, including access workflows, endpoint management, internal support, and routine service operations. You will use AI-assisted systems, self-service, durable documentation, and tooling to make those functions scalable and dependable. You will also resolve the important exceptions that cannot be automated, from access and SSH problems to endpoint, office, and laboratory-computer issues.

This is an owner-operator role, not a traditional help-desk position. Several of our systems were built quickly under real deadlines and now need to become dependable. You will simplify and strengthen them while working directly with research teams and company operations. You do not need to arrive ready to own every part of our infrastructure: you will take ownership of our AWS environment through a structured handoff over your first three to six months.

Responsibilities:

IT Systems and Automation

• Own the internal IT systems. Improve the systems and automation that keep CI’s research and company operations running; simplify fragile processes, eliminate repetitive work, and create reliable self-service wherever practical.

• Administer the SaaS estate. Run identity, email, collaboration, source-control, and other SaaS platforms with least-privilege access and reliable audit trails.

• Manage the endpoint fleet. Own device security, inventory, and the provisioning lifecycle for Mac and Windows systems.

• Run our AI-assisted IT support system. An internal agent takes employee requests (accounts, access, software, troubleshooting) from chat, resolves routine ones automatically, and escalates the rest to you. Keep its integrations with our identity, device-management, and SaaS platforms working, review its automated actions, and add new automated resolutions as recurring request patterns emerge.

• Make onboarding and offboarding reliable. Automate account, device, and access provisioning and deprovisioning while remaining accountable for completion and exceptions.

• Resolve the exceptions. Handle user, access, connectivity, endpoint, office, and laboratory-computer issues when automation or self-service is insufficient.

• Build durable processes. Cover IT migrations, security awareness, equipment requests, and procurement handoffs so routine work does not depend on individual memory.

Infrastructure and Engineering Platform

• Operate and improve our AWS environment. Cover networking, identity and access, infrastructure as code, reliability, storage, backups, and cost management, assuming full ownership through a structured handoff over your first three to six months.

• Own research compute. Support the GPU and Slurm workloads and shared Linux hosts our researchers depend on.

• Keep production services healthy. Operate the infrastructure behind production applications and research services, improving observability, deployment safety, incident response, and recovery.

• Improve engineering productivity. Own CI/CD, repository controls, internal web applications, and AI-enabled automation.

Security and Compliance

• Run GDPR and SOC 2 day to day. Maintain the policies, controls, and evidence needed to keep the company compliant.

• Turn requirements into working controls. Translate guidance from our CISO, auditors, and security specialists into technical controls across cloud infrastructure, internal applications, endpoints, research systems, and data handling.

• Maintain the control set. Cover data retention, least-privilege access, audit logging, encryption, backups, incident response, and compliant handling of data across regions.

• Coordinate the recurring work. Access reviews, policy updates, audit evidence, vendor-security requests, security awareness, and remediation of identified gaps.
  

Qualifications:

• 3+ years owning internal IT systems, including identity and access, SaaS administration, endpoint management, automation, and user support, with meaningful exposure to cloud infrastructure or DevOps work.

• A demonstrated record of using AI and LLM tooling to eliminate or automate operational work. Expect us to ask you to walk through something you automated away.

• Experience supporting and securing company endpoints using MDM, EDR, or comparable fleet-management tooling.

• Practical scripting and automation skills, with the ability to troubleshoot and make small changes to existing tools; Python experience is preferred.

• Linux fluency, including SSH, permissions, services, and diagnosis from logs, plus working familiarity with AWS services such as IAM, EC2, and S3. You should be able to operate safely today and grow into full ownership with support.

• Clear written communication for runbooks, policies, and documentation used by scientists and other non-specialists.

Preferred qualifications

• Deeper AWS experience, including VPC networking, and experience defining infrastructure as code with tools such as CloudFormation, CDK, or Terraform and shipping changes through code review.

• Experience building production services or internal automation in Python.

• Experience using large language models to build internal automation, including agent workflows, reusable skills, or MCP servers.

• Experience with Google Workspace, Slack, GitHub, and modern identity or SSO platforms.

• Experience with HPC schedulers such as Slurm or batch compute for GPU training jobs.

• Prior ownership of a GDPR, SOC 2, ISO 27001, GxP, or comparable compliance program in a technical role.

• Experience managing cloud costs at scale.

• Prior experience in a startup or fast-paced, interdisciplinary environment.
  

About you:

• An owner, not a ticket-taker. You take a system that was built fast under a real deadline and make it dependable, without waiting for someone to hand you a plan.

• Automation-first by instinct. When a task shows up for the third time, your reflex is to remove it rather than schedule it. You would rather eliminate a recurring task than staff it forever.

• Good judgment about scope. You know which problems deserve a robust solution and which deserve a small one. Our best infrastructure decisions are often the simple ones.

• Steady on the exceptions. You are just as comfortable debugging an SSH problem or a laboratory computer as you are designing the automation that prevents the next one.

• A clear writer. Your runbooks and policies are read and used by scientists and other non-specialists, and they hold up when you are not in the room.

Cellular Intelligence is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or age. We embrace differences and believe that a diverse workforce enhances our creativity, innovation, and overall success.