Research Engineer at Chai Discovery (San Francisco, CA)Research Engineer

Chai builds the design suite for molecules. We train frontier models that learn the underlying foundations of biochemical structure and interaction, so scientists can move faster and pursue targets that other methods cannot reach.

AI is reinventing life sciences the same way it reinvented software engineering, and Chai is at the forefront of this shift. Leading pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilly endpoints.news/, Pfizer forbes.com/, and Novartis chaidiscovery.com/novartis-partnership are adopting our platform to power their drug discovery programs.

We value diverse perspectives and are ready to find greatness in unexpected places.

We are seeking an AI Research Engineer to help design, train, evaluate, and optimize Chai’s core models and infrastructure, working in tight loops with research scientists. Chai's models are moving beyond protein structure prediction into real-world therapeutic engineering. This is a chance to push the frontier of AI drug design, working alongside a craft-obsessed team of micro-pessimists and macro-optimists.

• Develop and optimize all the infrastructure & tooling upon which our AI research depends.
• Collaborate with AI researchers to understand, implement and optimize new research directions.
• Integrate AI models into production systems, ensuring scalability and reliability.

Ideal backgrounds include high-performance computing, custom CUDA kernels and GPU programming, AI/ML + data systems at scale.

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• Strong proficiency in programming languages such as Python and deep learning frameworks like PyTorch.
• Deep understanding of operating system internals.
• Experience with HPC infrastructure such as Slurm and Kubernetes.
• Experience with performance engineering and profiling for CPU and CPU workloads.
• Experience writing, building, and maintaining large-scale ETL pipelines.

The opportunity to work at the vanguard of AI research and frontier biology, with world-class people, on a mission that matters. We protect & promote a culture of high velocity and ownership. We compensate our team accordingly.