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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Senior Software Engineer, TuneLab - **Company:** The Lilly Company - **Location:** San Francisco, CA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $157,500.0 - $253,000.0 - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Application Layers, Software as a Service, Cloud Computing, Code Review, Cursor (Graphical User Interface Elements), Database Schema, Software Engineering, Large Language Models, Backend, Information Technology, Build Tools, Front End Software Development, Api Design - **Published:** September 11, 2026 - **Apply:** https://dejobs.org/x/x/30475ADF9B8E423CB6F8DDA9D87FB8AB/job/ ## About the Role * Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. * 5+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping software that real customers used and relied on. * Experience as a senior engineer on a product team-ideally a small one. * Qualified applicants must be authorized to work in the United States on a full-time basis. Lilly will not provide support for or sponsor work authorization or visas for this role, including but not limited to F-1 CPT, F-1 OPT, F-1 STEM OPT, J-1, H-1B, TN, O-1, E-3, H-1B1, or L-1 Additional Skills/Preferences Technical depth * Strong full-stack fundamentals. You're comfortable owning a feature from database schema to UI and have an opinion about each layer. * Solid API design and integration experience. You know how to build systems that connect things cleanly. * Real frontend craft: you can design and ship interfaces that feel right, not just functional. You sweat the empty states and the error states. * Cloud experience and comfort with modern deployment practices. * Enough familiarity with AI/ML to make good integration decisions. You don't need to be a data scientist, but you need to understand what you're wrapping and why it matters. * Always learning. You want the why behind an ask, not just the what, and you don't let momentum decide a solution for you. * Hands-on experience building LLM-powered features. You understand the practical challenges: reliability, evals, context management, and when not to use AI. * Comfortable with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, etc.). You know how to get the most out of them. ## Description TuneLab has powerful underlying AI models and point solutions. The job now is to turn them into something a biotech startup can actually use: a coherent workflow, a clean product experience, and a SaaS offering that scales. You won't start from zero. There are working point solutions, trained models, and internal infrastructure to build on. Federated learning is a meaningful part of the work - letting biotech customers use & train Lilly's models without their data leaving their environment. Plenty else is yours to create from scratch. We're looking for a Senior Software Engineer to be one of the early engineers on this team. You'll own meaningful product surfaces end-to-end, ship features that customers depend on, and raise the bar on what we build. You'll partner closely with a Staff Software Engineer and the Engineering Manager. You'll have real influence on architecture and the engineering bar. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with product, design, and data science, and report to the TuneLab Engineering Manager., Build the product * Own product surfaces end-to-end-frontend, backend, data, integrations-whatever the problem requires. You don't hand off; you ship. * Build the application layer that wraps Lilly's AI models into reliable, cohesive workflows for biotech customers. * Drive features end-to-end. Take a fuzzy requirement, weigh the tradeoffs, and ship something that works. * Stay deep in the code. This is a build role, not a review role. * Contribute to the engineering bar-code review, testing, release process, on-call. Hold the standards we set. Lift the team * Mentor the engineers around you. Make them better at the job, not just better at this codebase. * Partner with PM and design on features. Speak up early when something feels off in the spec or the scope. * Help interview engineers as the team grows. Hold the bar. * Spot the things nobody owns and either pick them up or flag them clearly. Operate effectively inside a large company * Navigate enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements without disrupting development progress. * Work with Lilly IT and internal platform teams to leverage existing capabilities rather than rebuild them. * Join customer conversations when it helps. You can hold your own technically with a counterpart on the other side., * You think about the user, not just the system. You've built software that external customers actually paid for and relied on. * You've simplified complex backend capabilities into clean, usable product experiences. * You ask "what problem are we solving?" before "how do we build it?" * You talk product with a PM, not just specs. You'll raise "wait, why are we building this?" when it matters. * Focused on delivering business value, not just shipping features. You'll work directly with internal stakeholders and customers when it helps the team. Startup mentality * You've worked in environments where the roadmap wasn't fully defined and the team was small, and you thrived. * You unblock yourself and figure things out. You don't wait for a spec or hand-holding. * You create structure and process when needed, but you know when to skip it. * You take ownership broadly. If something isn't working, you fix it rather than wait for someone else to. * Startup experience matters here more than big-tech tenure. How you work * You bring judgment to your work. You speak up early when something looks off and update fast when you're wrong. * Low ego, high standards. You'll learn from a more junior engineer who knows the area better, and you'll push back firmly when you don't agree. * You communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences. Additional Preferences * Experience in life sciences, pharma, or health tech. * Background building B2B SaaS products. * Prior experience at a startup, or as an early engineer in an internal startup within a larger company. Why This Role Lilly has built genuinely differentiated AI capabilities for drug discovery. The gap is product: turning that science into something a biotech startup can access, onboard, and build with. That's what this team is about. You'll be one of the early engineers on a small team. The codebase is young, the practices are forming, and your work shapes them. You'll have real ownership, a short decision chain, and work that matters. The product you help ship can affect how medicines get discovered and developed. That's not a line in a pitch deck-it's the actual job. Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation ) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response. ## Related Videos - [API Design - Getting Started](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/33-api-design-getting-started) - [Developing the Backend with Stefan Lingler, CTO at Shpock](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100360-developing-the-backend-with-stefan-lingler-cto-at-shpock) - [Are Code Reviews Worth It? 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