--- title: 'Member of Technical Staff - System Engineering at Phylo, Inc.' canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-system-engineering-phylo-inc-south-san-francisco-pjm60bthndbx' type: 'job' last_seen: '2026-09-12' --- # Member of Technical Staff - System Engineering at Phylo, Inc. - **Company:** Phylo, Inc. - **Location:** South San Francisco, CA - **Employment:** full-time - **Work type:** onsite - **Posted:** 2026-04-05 - **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-12 - **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/phylo/afd4a9ff-e473-4a1a-95c2-cb798587c554 ## Job description ## About Phylo Phylo is an applied research lab building agentic intelligence to accelerate discovery for every biomedical scientist. We believe AI agents will fundamentally transform how biomedical research is done. Our fast-growing team brings together researchers and engineers across AI and biology, commercializing the Biomni platform. Our growing team brings together world class researchers and engineers across AI and biology. Backed by a $13.5M seed round led by a16z, Menlo Ventures and Anthropic, and advised by Nobel Prize laureate and pioneering biologists, Phylo is building the next generation of AI systems for the life sciences. ## About the Role We’re looking for an engineer to build and operate the core systems that power Phylo’s agentic AI platform in production. You’ll design and implement the distributed systems, compute environments, and service architecture that allow our AI agents to run reliably at scale — across cloud-native deployments and enterprise environments. We are an AI-native engineering team: we use coding agents heavily, move fast, and hold a very high bar for engineering excellence. What you’ll do as a Member of Technical Staff - System Engineering at Phylo: - Design and build production systems that orchestrate agent execution and power AI-driven scientific workloads. - Build and operate scalable, reliable infrastructure across cloud, hybrid, and on-prem enterprise environments. - Develop systems for sandboxed execution, secure task isolation, and controlled compute environments. Design and implement security, access control, and compliance foundations suitable for enterprise deployments. - Design and operate the storage and data systems behind large-scale scientific workloads, including distributed file systems, object storage, and databases. - Partner closely with ML and science teams to translate computational workflows into robust, production-grade distributed systems. What We're Looking For: - 3+ years of industry experience in backend, infrastructure, or distributed systems engineering. - Strong proficiency in at least one programming language (e.g., Python, Go, Rust, or similar). - Experience designing and operating distributed systems in production. - Deep hands-on experience with containerization and Kubernetes. - Experience with infrastructure-as-code tooling (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi, or equivalent). - Experience operating systems on at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure). - Hands-on experience building or operating large-scale distributed file systems, storage platforms, or databases in production. - Comfort owning systems end-to-end in fast-moving, high-autonomy environments. Nice to Haves: - Experience in building R&D infrastructure at Pharma/Biotech. - Experience supporting data-intensive scientific computing, bioinformatics, HPC, or ML workloads. - Experience with job orchestration, task scheduling, or workflow engines. - Experience with sandboxed or isolated execution frameworks (e.g., gVisor, Kata Containers, Firecracker). - Familiarity with distributed storage, observability systems, or high-performance compute environments. Why Join Us? - Competitive salary and equity share in building the future of biomedical discovery - Full medical, dental, and vision coverage, including free therapy sessions and eyewear stipend - 401(k) to help you build long-term financial security (US only) - Unlimited PTO to recharge when you need it (US only) - Lunch and snacks when you're in the office - Regular team offsites and company events - A culture of excellence and speed - we move fast, think big, and support each other every step of the way - Your work will directly impact our mission to 100X biomedical discoveries through AI ## About Phylo, Inc. ## Company Overview - **One-liner**: An applied research lab building agentic AI for biomedical scientists, creating an Integrated Biology Environment (IBE) that functions as an IDE for biology. - **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage – $13.5M raised) - **Headquarters**: South San Francisco, California, USA - **Founded**: 2025 - **Founders**: Kexin Huang (CEO) and Yuanhao Qu (President) ## Core Business - **Primary industries**: Artificial Intelligence / Biotechnology / Research Services - **Target customers**: Biomedical scientists, research institutions, and biopharma enterprises (B2B) - **Mission**: “Accelerate discoveries for every biomedical scientist” — building a collaborative AI workspace that lets biologists design experiments, analyze data, and reason through the scientific process in one environment. ## Products & Services - **Biomni Lab** (Integrated Biology Environment – IBE) **Type**: AI-native platform (SaaS) A shared workspace where biologists and AI agents collaborate. Covers literature review, experiment design, data analysis, result interpretation, reagent ordering, and integration with external tools and robotic labs. Designed to be rigorous, personalized, and native to how biologists work. ## Market Standing - **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed - **Key Metric**: Total funding $13.5M (Seed round, February 2026); estimated annual revenue $264K - **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz (lead), Anthology Fund, Menlo Ventures (conflicting reports – Tracxn lists Menlo Ventures, LinkedIn names Anthology Fund) - **Growth Signals**: - 8 full-time employees (LinkedIn) + 6 active job postings - Monthly headcount growth of +33.3% and job posting growth of +500% (LinkedIn) - First of its kind “Integrated Biology Environment” concept generating industry interest ## Competitive Advantages - **Scientific rigor built in**: Agents are designed to challenge their own outputs, flag shaky assumptions, and keep a trail of evidence for reproducibility. - **Native to biology**: Interface and interactions are based on biological concepts and real researcher workflows, not generic AI. - **Personalized and collaborative**: The environment adapts to individual researcher preferences and tools, acting as a true partner. - **Enterprise-grade security**: ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 Type II compliant, ensuring data protection. ## Strategic Focus - Continue advancing the IBE to close the loop between experiment design and robotic lab execution, reducing discovery cycles from weeks to hours. - Expand integration with biomedical databases, models, and lab hardware. - Scale the platform to serve more research organizations while maintaining scientific rigor and pragmatic usefulness. ## Why Work Here - **Culture**: Small, flat team (≈8 people) at an early stage, offering high ownership and impact. Founders (Kexin Huang, Yuanhao Qu) come from Stanford and have backgrounds in AI and biology. - **Work policy**: Hybrid workspace with offices in South San Francisco (HQ), the Netherlands, and India; remote-friendly options. - **Notable perks**: Cutting-edge applied research at the intersection of AI and biology; access to enterprise-grade infrastructure; chance to shape the next standard biomedical research tool. - **Tech stack**: Kubernetes, Python, React, TypeScript, Nextflow, Slurm, Terraform, Lustre. - **Open roles** (as of mid-2026): Engineering (Product, Systems, Infrastructure), Computational Biology, Enterprise GTM, Customer Success. ## Sources 1. [phylo.bio](https://phylo.bio) 2. [Phylo vision blog](https://phylo.bio/blog/vision) 3. [Built In company profile](https://builtin.com/company/phylo) 4. [LinkedIn company page](https://www.linkedin.com/company/phylo-bio) 5. [Tracxn company profile](https://tracxn.com/d/companies/phylo/__AluRJyaowMkNbsC-e9g_avW8Xbdxb26Epw4168-RJd4) ## Other roles at Phylo, Inc. - [Member of Technical Staff – Product Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-product-engineering-phylo-inc-south-san-francisco-9j54arsktha1) — South San Francisco, CA - [Recruiter](https://feeny.ai/job/recruiter-phylo-inc-south-san-francisco-pq8ydahxd8ve) — South San Francisco, CA - [Security & Compliance Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/security-compliance-manager-phylo-inc-toronto-drnaahmvpbe7) — Toronto, Canada - [Opportunistic Role](https://feeny.ai/job/opportunistic-role-phylo-inc-south-san-francisco-fc3evqtgt6bm) — South San Francisco, CA - [Member of Technical Staff - Agent Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-agent-engineer-phylo-inc-south-san-francisco-zy1rm4865jh5) — South San Francisco, CA - [Member of Technical Staff - Forward Deployed Scientist](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-forward-deployed-scientist-phylo-inc-south-san-e46qrrfnczag) — South San Francisco, CA - [Enterprise Account Executive](https://feeny.ai/job/enterprise-account-executive-phylo-inc-toronto-9944387tadgk) — Toronto, Canada / San Francisco Bay Area - [Forward Deployed Strategist](https://feeny.ai/job/forward-deployed-strategist-phylo-inc-toronto-pxa2ayvc7xmf) — Toronto, Canada / San Francisco Bay Area - [Member of Technical Staff - Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-infrastructure-phylo-inc-toronto-q1gkts3r79qs) — Toronto, Canada