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Staff Engineer, AI Foundations

New York, NY; Boston MA

About Formation Bio

Formation Bio is a tech and AI driven pharma company differentiated by radically more efficient drug development. 

Advancements in AI and drug discovery are creating more candidate drugs than the industry can progress because of the high cost and time of clinical trials. Recognizing that this development bottleneck may ultimately limit the number of new medicines that can reach patients, Formation Bio, founded in 2016 as TrialSpark Inc., has built technology platforms, processes, and capabilities to accelerate all aspects of drug development and clinical trials. Formation Bio partners, acquires, or in-licenses drugs from pharma companies, research organizations, and biotechs to develop programs past clinical proof of concept and beyond, ultimately helping to bring new medicines to patients. The company is backed by investors across pharma and tech, including a16z, Sequoia, Sanofi, Thrive Capital, Sam Altman, John Doerr, Spark Capital, SV Angel Growth, and others. 

You can read more at the following links:

At Formation Bio, our values are the driving force behind our mission to revolutionize the pharma industry. Every team and individual at the company shares these same values, and every team and individual plays a key part in our mission to bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.

About the Position

We are seeking a seasoned Staff Engineer to lead our AI Foundations Team—a new initiative dedicated to establishing the core infrastructure, platforms, and governance frameworks that will underpin our enterprise-wide AI capabilities. In this role, you will architect and drive the development of our AI Platform, Services, and Governance layer. Your work will empower teams across the organization by providing scalable, secure, and efficient access to AI models and tooling. If you are passionate about creating foundational technical investments and shaping a next-generation AI ecosystem, we’d love to hear from you. 

Responsibilities 

Architectural Leadership:

  • Define and lead the end-to-end design of our AI Platform, ensuring robust, scalable, and secure services.
  • Drive the integration of key initiatives such as model profiling & benchmarking, programmatic model access, evaluation tooling, knowledge graphs, and scalable model deployment. 

Platform & Governance Strategy:

  • Establish best practices for AI model governance and operational excellence, setting technical standards that ensure quality, security, and performance.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams—Tech, Data Science, Regulatory, and Quality Assurance —to translate strategic requirements into innovative technical solutions.

Innovation & Cross-Functional Collaboration:

  • Stay current with emerging trends and technologies in AI infrastructure and platform engineering to identify new technical investments and opportunities to enhance our AI capabilities.
  • Act as an internal evangelist, mentoring teams and deploying technical approaches that help us forward our mission to deliver treatments to patients faster and more efficiently 

Operational Excellence:

  • Oversee the development and integration of cloud and AI native services, models, and CI/CD pipelines to support continuous delivery.
  • Ensure the platform is robust, scalable, and can seamlessly support evolving AI models and services. 

About You

Experience & Education:

  • Master’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, AI, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
  • 8+ years of software development experience with a strong track record in building scalable, distributed systems and platforms—preferably within AI/ML contexts.
  • Proven track record and experience with Build vs Buy decisions. We want to move quickly and focus on the most differentiating work in a rapidly evolving field. That means knowing when to build and when to buy. 

Technical Expertise:

  • Deep experience with AI/ML frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) and familiarity with modern tools for model evaluation, profiling, and governance.
  • Extensive background in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their respective AI Tooling (Bedrock, Sagemaker, Google Vertex, Azure ML Studio), containerization, and CI/CD methodologies.
  • Proven expertise in designing and implementing service architectures and building enterprise-grade systems.
  • Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) 

Leadership & Communication:

  • Demonstrated leadership in cross-functional settings with a passion for mentoring and technical guidance.
  • Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences.
  • Experience establishing technical standards and best practices in early-stage or startup environments is a plus.

 

Formation Bio is headquartered in New York City, with plans to build a larger team and presence in Boston. We are prioritizing hiring in these areas, with an expectation for NYC-based employees to work in the office at least two days per week. While our primary focus is on candidates in NYC (including the Tri-state Area) and Boston, we may consider remote candidates from specific geographies based on qualifications, skills, and business needs. We believe that in-person collaboration is essential for breaking down silos, fostering cross-functional teamwork, and embedding our company values into daily work. All employees located outside of the NYC Metro Area will be expected to travel to the NYC office at least four times per year for company events and team-specific meetings or activities.

Compensation:

Salary ranges are informed in part by geographic location, in addition to other factors. The target salary ranges for this role are: 

  • NYC Metro Area, Boston Metro Area, SF Bay Area: $250,000 - $300,000
  • All Other Eligible Remote Locations: $237,500 - $285,000

The ranges provided above include base salary only. In addition to base salary, we offer equity, generous perks, hybrid flexibility, and comprehensive benefits.

If this range doesn’t match your expectations, please still apply because we may have something else for you.

**Eligible Remote Locations:
Alabama (AL), Arizona (AZ), California (CA), Connecticut (CT), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Illinois (IL), Indiana (IN), Maryland (MD), Massachusetts (MA), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), North Carolina (NC), Ohio (OH), Pennsylvania (PA), South Carolina (SC), Texas (TX), Utah (UT), Virginia (VA), and Washington, D.C. (DC).

You will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status.

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