Software Engineer, Product

Chai Discovery builds frontier AI models to design molecules and transform how new cures are found. We are a craft-obsessed team setting out to re-architect drug discovery and save lives.

The Chai founding team brought together leading researchers in this space and top silicon valley operators. Our founders led seminal accomplishments at top AI-for-biology programs and labs, co-invented protein language modelling, built state-of-the-art folding algorithms, and sold AI adopted by top-10 pharma companies. We are backed by top-tier investors, including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Dimension, Conviction, Lachy Groom, Amplify, and many more.

As a Product Software Engineer at Chai you’ll pair modern front-end frameworks with robust back-end services to let scientists query models, visualize structures, and manage data without leaving the browser. You’ll collaborate closely with designers, ML researchers, and wet-lab teams to turn complex science into polished, reliable software that accelerates drug discovery. These roles involve developing innovative, user-friendly web interfaces for computational molecular design.

At Chai, we’re entering a pivotal stage. After years of foundational R&D, our models are moving beyond protein structure prediction and into real-world therapeutic engineering. We're now tasking our AI models on a broad spectrum of drug development challenges, at an exciting scale of wet-lab validation.

This is not a typical role — it’s a chance to push the boundaries of drug discovery by building some of the most advanced AI drug design models ever built.

We’re looking for a mission-driven engineer who wants to define the gold standard for AI-powered drug-discovery products. You should have:

Software experience:

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or related field.

• 3 + years building production web applications with modern frameworks (React or Vue, TypeScript/JavaScript, Node/Go/Python back-ends)

• Proven experience in product development and design (specific requirements will vary by role)

• Proven track record collaborating with product managers and designers to turn Figma frames into pixel-perfect, accessible UIs

• Data-driven: instrument features, analyze usage, and iterate quickly on feedback

• Familiar with automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and monitoring/alerting for 24 × 7 production services

• Experience optimizing performance or interactive visualizations is a plus

Communication & collaboration

• Able to explain technical trade-offs to non-engineers and to translate scientific requirements into engineering tasks

• Enjoy pair-reviewing code, writing docs, and sharing knowledge with teammates

Mindset:

• Interest in biotech or computational biology; prior exposure to scientific data, bio-visualization, or HPC workloads is a bonus but not required

• Comfortable iterating quickly in a startup where requirements, and underlying science, evolve fast

• Bias for shipping: you value small, incremental improvements over big-bang rewrites

• Clear communicator who can simplify complex science for external partners and internal stakeholders

• Comfortable in a fast-moving startup where priorities shift and you own features end-to-end, from idea to production and beyond

• Frontier technology: work on the technologies that promises to fundamentally change how new therapeutics are created.

• World-class people: work with world-renowned leaders in the AI x Biology ecosystem.

• Velocity and ownership: we move incredibly fast and liberally distribute ownership, which means continuous learning and career growth opportunities are guaranteed.

• Strong culture and mission: we foster a supportive culture that is mission-driven and high-energy.

• Highly competitive compensation: we attract the best talent and compensate them accordingly.