---
title: 'Senior Staff Software Engineer, Platform at SandboxAQ'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-staff-software-engineer-platform-sandboxaq-united-states-5eg4n32h6d41'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-09'
---

# Senior Staff Software Engineer, Platform at SandboxAQ

- **Company:** SandboxAQ
- **Location:** United States
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** remote
- **Posted:** 2026-07-30
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-09
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sandboxaq/aaf55448-0313-40a2-aae4-334be5e185f3

## Job description

## ABOUT SANDBOXAQ

SandboxAQ is a high-growth company delivering AI solutions that address some of the world's greatest challenges. The company’s Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) power advances in life sciences, financial services, navigation, cybersecurity, and other sectors.

We are a global team that is tech-focused and includes experts in AI, chemistry, cybersecurity, physics, mathematics, medicine, engineering, and other specialties. The company emerged from Alphabet Inc. as an independent, growth capital-backed company in 2022, funded by leading investors and supported by a braintrust of industry leaders.

At SandboxAQ, we’ve cultivated an environment that encourages creativity, collaboration, and impact. By investing deeply in our people, we’re building a thriving, global workforce poised to tackle the world's epic challenges. Join us to advance your career in pursuit of an inspiring mission, in a community of like-minded people who value entrepreneurialism, ownership, and transformative impact.

## THE OPPORTUNITY

The Platform & Infrastructure team builds the foundational services, including compute, storage, networking, and robust cloud environments that empower our scientists and engineers to innovate at scale. We are committed to building reliable, scalable systems that accelerate developer velocity and ensure the high availability of our Large Quantitative Models (LQMs).

We are looking for a Senior Staff Engineer to act as a technical leader within our Platform & Infrastructure organization. This role is central to our efforts to evolve our architectural strategy, scale our core services to meet global demand, and elevate the technical capabilities of our engineering team. You will be instrumental in breaking down complex systemic challenges into clear, actionable parts, mentoring a team of junior engineers, and setting the standard for systems excellence across the company.

## KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

- Lead Architectural Strategy: Define and execute the long-term vision for our infrastructure, designing resilient, distributed systems that support our rapidly growing AI workloads.
- Mentor and Develop Talent: Provide technical leadership and mentorship to junior and mid-level engineers, fostering a culture of high standards, code quality, and continuous learning.
- Systemic Problem Solving: Partner with engineering leads to diagnose complex technical bottlenecks and break down multifaceted infrastructure challenges using first principles into scalable, manageable technical requirements.
- Drive Platform Excellence: Design and implement foundational platform services that improve developer experience and reduce operational overhead across the engineering organization.
- Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work closely with product, research, and security teams to ensure our infrastructure is secure, performant, and aligned with the company’s broader mission.

## ESSENTIAL SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

- 10+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of designing and scaling complex distributed systems.
- Demonstrated experience (5+ years) leading high-impact engineering teams, including mentoring junior engineers and influencing technical strategy at a staff level.
- Expertise in cloud-native infrastructure (GCP preferred) Kubernetes at scale.
- Expertise in GPU/ML infrastructure for large training, data-generation, and inference workloads, including GPU scheduling, optimization and high-performance networking.
- Strong ability to decompose complex technical problems into simplified, incremental, and actionable architectural designs.

## HIGHLY DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

- Deep proficiency in architectural patterns for high-throughput, low-latency services.
- Experience operating in high-growth environments where infrastructure requirements pivot rapidly due to new scientific or product discoveries.
- Experience with multi-tenant, data governance, data registries, lineage, and federated access for model tuning with high IP sensitive environments
- Worked in regulated / compliance-bound environments that have data residency, export controls, SOC2, and strict isolation requirements.

WHY JOIN US?

We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.

- Career Defining Work: Your work will directly accelerate the discovery of better drugs and better materials, advance human health, and enable safer and more sustainable technologies by helping customers put AI Simulation capabilities into real world use.
- Compensation: Competitive base salary, performance-based incentives or bonuses (where applicable), and equity participation.
- Benefits: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage for employees and dependents with generous employer premium contributions, retirement savings with company matching, paid parental leave, and inclusive family-building benefits.
- Work-Life Balance: Fully remote, Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.
- Learning and Growth: Opportunities for continuous learning and growth through on-the-job development, cross-functional collaboration, and access to internal learning and development programs.

## SANDBOXAQ WELCOMES ALL

We are committed to fostering a culture of belonging and respect, where diverse perspectives are actively sought and valued. Our multidisciplinary environment provides ample opportunity for continuous growth - working alongside humble, empowered, and ambitious colleagues ready to tackle epic challenges.

Equal Employment Opportunity: All qualified applicants will receive consideration regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, or Veteran status.

Accommodations: We provide reasonable accommodations for individuals with disabilities in job application procedures for open roles. If you need such an accommodation, please let a member of our Recruiting team know.

Read: Guidance for candidates on using AI Tools in interviews https://www.sandboxaq.com/ai-in-interviews

## About SandboxAQ

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: SandboxAQ develops Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) that combine AI and quantum techniques to solve real-world challenges in drug discovery, materials, navigation, cybersecurity, and other high-impact sectors.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Late Stage; raised $1.6B total, including Series E, venture rounds, and grants)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2021 (spun out from Alphabet in 2022)
- **Founders**: Jack Hidary (CEO); Eric Schmidt serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors

## Core Business
- **Primary Industries**: AI/Quantum software, life sciences (drug discovery), cybersecurity, financial services, navigation/defense, materials science
- **Target Customers**: B2B, serving large enterprises and government organizations in pharma, energy, defense, finance, and logistics
- **Mission**: Revolutionize industries with groundbreaking solutions at the intersection of AI and quantum technology

## Products & Services
- **AQBioSim**: AI simulation platform for accelerating molecular design and reducing failure rates in drug discovery (SaaS)
- **LQMs for Cybersecurity**: Cryptography management and quantum-safe security solutions (e.g., post-quantum cryptography, key management)
- **AI Navigation & Sensing**: Precise positioning and navigation systems resistant to jamming/spoofing, leveraging AI and quantum sensors (SaaS + hardware integration)
- **Materials & Chemistry Modeling**: LQMs that predict atomic-level properties to unlock new compounds for chemicals and materials (SaaS)
- **Financial Services LQMs**: Models for risk analysis, portfolio optimization, and fraud detection (SaaS)

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly disclosed; total funding reached $1.6 billion
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding: $1.6B (13 rounds); Annual Revenue (estimated): $9M (via disclosed financial data)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: T. Rowe Price, Eric Schmidt, Breyer Capital, Guggenheim Partners, Marc Benioff, Thomas Tull, Paladin Capital Group, Nvidia (backed via grant/award)
- **Growth Signals**:
  - Headcount: ~296 employees (+10.6% YoY)
  - Operating in 16 countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Switzerland, etc.)
  - Acquired Good Chemistry (Jan 2024) and Cryptosense (Sep 2022) to expand capabilities
  - Recent funding: $95M venture round (July 2025), additional private equity round (Feb 2026)
  - US government awarded $500M (Nvidia-backed) for finding new outcomes (likely defense/pharma contract)
  - Recognized with multiple industry awards (Fierce Innovator in Life Sciences 2025, Wash100 Award, etc.)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Quantitative AI (LQMs)**: Models that understand the physical world (molecules, materials, navigation) – distinct from purely data-driven LLMs
- **Alphabet Spinout Heritage**: Foundational technology and talent from Google’s parent company
- **Multidisciplinary Team**: Physicists, chemists, cryptographers, AI researchers – rare combination
- **Strong Government & Enterprise Ties**: Direct contracts with US defense and pharma, plus deep investor network
- **Integrated Portfolio**: One platform covering simulation, cybersecurity, and sensing – creating cross-selling opportunities

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale LQM Applications**: Expand from drug discovery into climate, energy, and defense
- **Deepen Government Partnerships**: Capitalize on $500M US award and develop mission-critical navigation/security systems
- **Build Ecosystem**: Open APIs and partnerships with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, Databricks) to embed LQMs into existing workflows
- **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring ML engineers, computational chemists, and research scientists to maintain technical lead

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: Emphasizes inclusion, service leadership, and fearlessness. Described as “the most humble player in the AQ industry” with a growth mindset.
- **Remote/Hybrid Policy**: Flexible work environment; home office stipend and connectivity stipend provided; regular offsites for collaboration.
- **Benefits**: Best-in-class medical, dental, vision; 100% paid maternity/paternity leave; 401k with company match; wellness stipend; learning & development programs; flexible time off including winter break and volunteering days.
- **Engineering Culture**: Hands-on work at the frontier of AI and quantum; cross-disciplinary teams (physics, chemistry, neuroscience, cryptography); opportunity to publish research and attend conferences.
- **Growth Opportunities**: Residency program for early-career scientists; stock options; clear career progression in a fast-growing late-stage startup.

## Sources
1. [sandboxaq.com](https://www.sandboxaq.com/)
2. [sandboxaq.com/company/about-us](https://www.sandboxaq.com/company/about-us)
3. [sandboxaq.com/careers](https://www.sandboxaq.com/careers)
4. [linkedin.com/company/sandboxaq](https://www.linkedin.com/company/sandboxaq)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/sandboxaq](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/sandboxaq)

## Other roles at SandboxAQ

- [Quantum Resident](https://feeny.ai/job/quantum-resident-sandboxaq-united-states-pqsjy7jbnda3) — United States
- [Marketing Events Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/marketing-events-manager-sandboxaq-united-states-197wh1zsa2xg) — United States
- [Senior Counsel, IP](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-counsel-ip-sandboxaq-united-states-02j7vcxfmj93) — United States
- [Director of Product Management, Financial Risk Modeling](https://feeny.ai/job/director-of-product-management-financial-risk-modeling-sandboxaq-united-states-0w42gvhd7197) — United States
- [Background Investigator / Analyst](https://feeny.ai/job/background-investigator-analyst-sandboxaq-united-states-0me27er3nsz3) — United States
- [Senior Director of Product Management, Chemical Simulation](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-director-of-product-management-chemical-simulation-sandboxaq-united-mvs90vtqap3c) — United States
- [Senior Platform Engineer, Medical Devices](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-platform-engineer-medical-devices-sandboxaq-palo-alto-4mdxcwkyv6q2) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Research Scientist, Homogeneous Catalyst Simulation](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-homogeneous-catalyst-simulation-sandboxaq-united-states-kwe66bp6p65j) — United States
- [Staff Software Engineer, Platform](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-software-engineer-platform-sandboxaq-united-states-w8w2v6gzsp2z) — United States
- [HR Operations Lead, People Infrastructure](https://feeny.ai/job/hr-operations-lead-people-infrastructure-sandboxaq-united-states-jk334da78zw7) — United States