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Software Engineer, Backend (Developer Platform)

San Francisco, CA

Biotechnology is rewriting life as we know it, from the medicines we take, to the crops we grow, the materials we wear, and the household goods that we rely on every day. But moving at the new speed of science requires better technology.

Benchling’s mission is to unlock the power of biotechnology. The world’s most innovative biotech companies use Benchling’s R&D Cloud to power the development of breakthrough products and accelerate time to milestone and market. 

Come help us bring modern software to modern science.

ROLE OVERVIEW

At Benchling, our mission is to empower scientists to accelerate discoveries that change the world. As a Software Engineer on the Developer Platform team, you’ll play a pivotal role in building the platform that enables our ecosystem of scientific applications. You won’t just write code, you’ll help shape how developers, partners, and scientists interact with Benchling’s products, allowing them to create tools that directly support groundbreaking research. Your work will impact the way science gets done, driving innovation and enabling seamless integration of third-party solutions across the platform.

The team is working on a wide range of early- and mid-stage initiatives—including developer APIs, event delivery, AI-powered agents, and new platform infrastructure designed to support a growing ecosystem of scientific applications. Because of the diversity of our work, engineers have the flexibility to take on projects that align with both business needs and their own interests and skills. This role was envisioned as a “Developer Platform Engineer,” reflecting the breadth of opportunities to contribute across our developer-facing systems.

This is a hands-on, high-impact role where your contributions will be visible across the company and to our scientific users worldwide. You’ll collaborate with product managers, designers, and engineers, tackling complex challenges while growing your expertise in platform development and life sciences.

RESPONSIBILITIES

  • Take ownership of projects from ideation to delivery, including prototyping, building, and scaling new software features.
  • Design and implement robust APIs, services, and interfaces that integrate seamlessly with our growing ecosystem.
  • Partner with cross-functional teams to translate user needs into scalable, elegant software solutions.
  • Influence the direction of our platform by bringing creative solutions and new ideas to the table.

Developer Interfaces & Platform APIs

  • Design, build, and maintain external developer-facing APIs and SDKs that power extensibility in Benchling’s platform.
  • Contribute to evolving and scaling our REST and GraphQL APIs, ensuring consistency, performance, and usability for external and internal developers.
  • Build and maintain delivery systems for real-time scientific data

Bonus: AI Agents & Model Context Protocol (MCP)

  • Contribute to the development of APIs and interfaces that support AI-driven agents like Benchling’s Deep Research Agent and Data Entry Agent.
  • Support the development of our Benchling MCP to enable AI agents to interact safely with Benchling’s data and APIs.
  • Collaborate with our AI infra / agents teams to support the agentic ecosystem.
 

Check out our engineering blog for some examples of past work across Benchling. 

QUALIFICATIONS

  • Proficiency in modern web technologies: backend languages like Python, Ruby, Java, or Go, and frontend frameworks like TypeScript, React, or GraphQL.
  • Product-oriented mindset: you ship code quickly and care about the tangible impact of your work.
    Strong problem-solving skills and comfort iterating based on feedback.
  • Ownership mindset: you thrive when building and improving core components of a product.
  • Passion for learning about life sciences and applying that knowledge to improve the tools scientists rely on.
  • Enjoy collaborating with a team that values curiosity, experimentation, and making an impact.

WHY THIS ROLE IS EXCITING

  • You’ll work on mission-critical extensibility features used by external customers and partners.
  • You’ll help shape how developers build on top of Benchling, including support for AI, custom code, and LIMS integrations.
  • You’ll get to work across a wide surface area of Benchling’s platform — APIs, events, apps, and more — with increasing ownership.
  • You’ll collaborate with product, infra, and AI teams on forward-looking projects that define the future of biotech R&D platforms.

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).

SALARY RANGE

Benchling takes a market-based approach to pay.  The candidate's starting pay will be determined based on job-related skills, experience, qualifications, interview performance, and work location. For this role the base salary range is $141,104 to $190,906. 

To help you determine which zone applies to your location, please see this resource. If you have questions regarding a specific location's zone designation, please contact a recruiter for additional information.

Total Compensation includes the following:
  • Competitive total rewards package
  • Broad range of medical, dental, and vision plans for employees and their dependents
  • Fertility healthcare and family-forming benefits
  • Four months of fully paid parental leave
  • 401(k) + Employer Match
  • Commuter benefits for in-office employees and a generous home office set up stipend for remote employees
  • Mental health benefits, including therapy and coaching, for employees and their dependents
  • Monthly Wellness stipend
  • Learning and development stipend
  • Generous and flexible vacation
  • Company-wide Winter holiday shutdown
  • Sabbaticals for 5-year and 10-year anniversaries

#LI-Hybrid

#BI-Hybrid

#LI-MD1

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.

 

Please be aware that Benchling will never request personal information, payment, or sensitive details outside of Greenhouse or via email. All official communications will come from an @benchling.com email address or from an approved vendor alias. If you are contacted by someone claiming to represent Benchling and are unsure of their legitimacy, please reach out to us at recruiting-fraud-alert@benchling.com to verify the communication.

 

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