Staff Software Engineer

Role Overview:

PathGen is building a public-health intelligence platform for infectious-disease surveillance. We help public-health, laboratory and epidemiology teams turn complex biological, geospatial and contextual data into usable intelligence for decision-making. Our platform combines modern web applications, data-rich interfaces, geospatial visualisation, backend data workflows, AI-assisted analysis and cloud-native infrastructure.

We are looking for a Staff Software Engineer to help build and evolve the core PathGen platform. This is a hands-on role combining end-to-end engineering ownership with meaningful technical leadership across frontend, backend, infrastructure and product workflows. You will take complex features from initial requirements through architecture, implementation, deployment and iteration.

You should be comfortable working with ambiguity, making pragmatic technical decisions and collaborating closely with product, design and scientific teams. The ideal candidate is a strong engineer with technical depth, sound product judgement and proven systems-level ownership. At Staff level, you will shape technical architecture across the platform, set engineering standards, coordinate delivery and mentor engineers.

---

Responsibilities:

• Build and evolve production features across React, TypeScript, Python, FastAPI and PostgreSQL.
• Own complex features from initial requirements through architecture, implementation, deployment and iteration.
• Design APIs, backend services and data models for scientific, geospatial and operational workflows.
• Build user-facing dashboards, maps, reports and analytical tools.
• Make pragmatic architectural decisions across frontend, backend, data and cloud infrastructure.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, data science, geospatial and bioinformatics teams.
• Review code, mentor engineers and improve engineering practices, reliability and delivery.

---

Required Qualifications:

• 6+ years of professional software-engineering experience.
• Strong experience delivering production full-stack applications.
• Professional experience with Python and a modern React and TypeScript stack.
• Experience designing backend services, APIs and relational data models.
• Experience building and operating applications on AWS or GCP.
• Strong understanding of testing, CI/CD, monitoring and production debugging.
• Evidence of sound judgement around architecture, trade-offs, failure modes and data integrity.
• Experience leading technical projects, reviewing code or mentoring engineers.
• Clear communication and comfort working in an ambiguous, cross-functional environment.

---

Nice to Have:

• Experience building healthcare, public-health, scientific, geospatial, data or AI/ML products.
• Experience with PostGIS, geospatial visualisation, mapping tools or spatial data systems.
• Experience in an early-stage startup or small product-engineering team.

The role is appointed at Staff level for engineers with significant architectural breadth, technical leadership and product ownership.

---

Desired Personal Attributes:

• Start-up mentality (flexible & pragmatic)
• Strong collaboration skills in multi-disciplinary environments.
• Systems thinking and a bias toward reliability & scalability.
• Ability to design practical, maintainable full-stack infrastructure.

---

What We Offer:

• A mission-driven environment focused on improving global public health.
• Opportunities to work on high-impact problems in AI and pathogen genomics.
• A flexible and collaborative work culture with a commitment to innovation.
• Low bureaucracy with direct ownership of the product — no ticket-factory work.
• Competitive salary and paid leave.
• Hybrid-friendly work pattern.

Join us to help operationalize the future of genomic intelligence and deploy real-world AI tools that matter.