Software Engineer, Full Stack (Process Execution)
Benchling · San Francisco, United States · 9h ago
We are rebuilding biotech for the AI era.
When a breakthrough is delayed, the world waits. Getting a molecule from discovery to patients, or a crop from lab to field, involves thousands of slow, manual, disconnected steps. AI has the potential to change this, compressing decades of R&D work into years. But that only happens when clean, structured scientific data and AI are built into how science gets done.
Benchling is the AI platform for biotech R&D. Scientists use Benchling to design experiments, capture structured data, and run AI agents and models directly in their workflows. Over 200,000 scientists around the world trust Benchling to power their most important work, from academic labs to Sanofi, Moderna, and more than half of the world's top 50 biopharma.
We’re building an AI scientist for our customers. We can’t do that if we haven’t built the muscle ourselves. AI fluency is the foundation we build on; it's core to how we work, and we're committed to helping every new hire integrate it into their day-to-day. As part of our interview process, you'll complete a brief AI-focused exercise or discussion so we can understand how you think about and use AI to drive impact in your role. Feel free to reference any tools, platforms, or workflows you use today.
ROLE OVERVIEW
The Process Development team builds the platform that enables biotech and pharmaceutical companies to design, execute, and manage complex scientific manufacturing processes at scale. Our workflow engine is the foundational layer — a system that lets scientists and operators model their processes as structured workflows and then execute them reliably, whether one person is doing everything or an entire team is coordinating across steps.
As a Software Engineer on this team, you'll work full-stack across Workflows, Recipes, and Assays — the core products that Benchling customers depend on to run their operations. You'll build features that show up directly in how scientists manage manufacturing workflows, integrate our products with the wider Benchling ecosystem to help customers automate their work, and shape how AI tooling gets integrated into our products.
TEAM MISSION
The Process Execution (PE) team builds where life sciences move from the physical lab into digital records. We own the workflow engine and multiple products built on top of it (Workflows, Recipes, Assays, Requests, and Worklists). Our goal is to empower biotechs (from startups to multi-nationals) to speedup development and manufacturing of life-saving treatments (the D in R&D). Our foundation is our orchestration platform that allows complex physical processes to be mapped to their digital twins. On top of the platform, the team builds opinionated products to help customers optimize their physical process execution. These are mission critical workflows that our customers (and their customers!) rely on every day, often in regulated manufacturing environments where correctness is non-negotiable.
Aligning with Benchling’s mission of creating the AI scientist, the PE team is pioneering how AI agents can be given tools and skills to optimize both how our customers execute their work and how they analyze and improve their procedures. As a member of the team you’ll have a front-row seat in pushing AI into the physical layers of life sciences development.
The team currently consists of six engineers working across multiple parts of the products with strong latitude to shape core decisions from UI design to UX flows to system architecture and implementation. The work is high-stakes and high-impact: the systems you build are used daily by scientists and operators running mission-critical scientific work, and correctness and attention to detail matter enormously.
RESPONSIBILITIES
Build and maintain core features across the workflow engine, recipes, and assays — full-stack across backend services and frontend product surfaces
Contribute to the data modeling that underpins workflow graph structures, task execution tracking, and work management
Build products on top of the workflow orchestration engine for industry standard processes
Collaborate cross-functionally with the AI Agents team to expose both the workflow engine and products built on top to enable AI-assisted scientific work
Write well-documented, well-tested code and participate actively in code review
Engage with on-call rotation (approximately 1.5 weeks per person per quarter) to support a customer-facing product used continuously by life science teams
Partner with product management and design to translate complex scientific workflow needs into intuitive, reliable software
Embrace AI-assisted development practices — this team expects engineers to work alongside and in parallel with agents as a core part of the development workflow
QUALIFICATIONS
3+ years of professional software engineering experience building and maintaining production systems
Full-stack experience — comfort working across backend (Python or similar) and frontend (React or equivalent)
Strong product sense with the ability to iterate based on user feedback and evolving requirements
Collaborative mindset — able to work closely with engineers, PMs, and cross-functional partners across a complex codebase
Willingness to engage with AI-assisted development tools (Cloud agents, Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent) as a primary mode of working
Interest in learning about life sciences — prior biotech knowledge not required, but genuine curiosity is.
Willing to work onsite in our San Francisco office three days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)
NICE-TO-HAVE-QUALIFICATIONS
Experience with workflow engines, orchestration systems, or similar data-flow platforms
Familiarity with regulated software environments (GxP, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, or similar)
Background in React, Python and PostgreSQL
Experience working in enterprise B2B SaaS serving large, complex organizations
HOW WE WORK
We offer a flexible hybrid work arrangement that prioritizes in-office collaboration. Employees are expected to be on-site 3 days per week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday).
Benchling welcomes everyone.
We believe diversity enriches our team so we hire people with a wide range of identities, backgrounds, and experiences.
We are an equal opportunity employer. That means we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. We also consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, consistent with applicable federal, state and local law, including but not limited to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.