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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Staff Software Engineer, TuneLab - **Company:** The Lilly Company - **Location:** United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Salary:** $177,000.0 - $270,600.0 - **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:** June 14, 2026 - **Apply:** https://www.juju.com/job/00000000g7z8ii ## About the Role + Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field. + 8+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping SaaS products used by real customers. + Demonstrated experience operating as a senior or staff IC on a small team-not just as a senior IC on a large 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. Product instincts + 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 can hold your own with a PM on what we should build, not just how to build it. + 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. + Self-sufficient. You unblock yourself and figure things out. + 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 lead + You lead with judgment. You don't need a manager title to set direction. + 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. + Experience as a technical co-founder or one of the first engineers on a product that found users. ## 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 Lilly's models without their data leaving their environment. Plenty else is yours to create from scratch. We're looking for a Staff Software Engineer to be one of the founding engineers on this team. This is an IC role with real scope. You'll own product end-to-end, set the technical direction, and make the architecture calls that decide how fast a small team can move. There's no tech lead above you to defer to and no architecture council to escalate to. You're the senior engineer in the room. You'll work shoulder-to-shoulder with product, design, data science, and report to the TuneLab Engineering Manager. Key Responsibilities Build the product + Own product surfaces end-to-end-frontend, backend, data, integrations-whatever the problem requires. You don't hand off; you ship. + Architect and build the application layer that wraps Lilly's AI models into reliable, cohesive workflows for biotech customers. Make a set of point solutions feel like a product. + Make pragmatic technology decisions. Optimize for speed and quality. Pick boring tools when they work and reach for novel only when it pays. + Stay deep in the code. This is a build role, not a review role. + Set the engineering bar from scratch-code review, testing, release process, on-call. What you build becomes the team norm. Lift the team + Mentor other engineers as the team grows. Make them better at the job, not just better at this codebase. + Partner with the Engineering Manager on hiring. You're an interviewer and a recruiter-you sell the role and you hold the bar. + Pressure-test the roadmap with the PM and design lead. You have product taste and you use it. You'll push back when a spec is wrong and find the simpler way to ship. + Spot the things nobody owns and either pick them up or assign them clearly. The team's gaps are your problem. 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. + Represent engineering in conversations with external biotech partners when it matters. You can speak credibly to a CTO on the other side. ## 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? Insights from 16 Years of Review Data](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1135-are-code-reviews-worth-it-insights-from-16-years-of-review-data) - [Slopquatting, API Keys, Fun with Fonts, Recruiters vs AI and more - The Best of LIVE 2025 - Part 2](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1765-slopquatting-api-keys-fun-with-fonts-recruiters-vs-ai-and-more-the-best-of-live-2025-part-2) - [Rest API Antipatterns](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100208-rest-api-antipatterns) - [Nest.js - TypeScript in the backend can also be clean](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1033-nest-js-typescript-in-the-backend-can-also-be-clean) ## Related Articles - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [How to Answer the Interview Question: “Why Do You Want to Be a Software Engineer?”](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/392-how-to-answer-the-interview-question-why-do-you-want-to-be-a-software-engineer) - [How We Built a Worry-Free System That Runs for 10+ Years – And What We’d Do Again](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/751-how-we-built-a-worry-free-system-that-runs-for-10-years-and-what-we-d-do-again) - [What is Software Engineering in the Age of AI?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/640-what-is-software-engineering-in-the-age-of-ai) - [What Are Large Language Models?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/304-what-are-large-language-models) - [Is AI turning Junior Developers into an endangered species?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/501-is-ai-turning-junior-developers-into-an-endangered-species)