Software Engineer (Scientific Applications )
Location: London, UK (Hybrid)
About the Role
We're looking for a pragmatic Software Engineer to help build and scale our computational drug discovery platform while developing software that enables scientists to work more efficiently.
This is a hands-on engineering role spanning backend development, cloud infrastructure, workflow automation, DevOps, scientific data management, and full-stack application development.
What You'll Do
- Design, develop, and maintain the core platform and backend services.
- Build modern full-stack applications and internal web portals that support scientific research.
- Develop software that automates experimental workflows and replaces semi-manual processes.
- Design and improve scientific data management systems and internal tooling.
- Build and maintain cloud-native infrastructure on AWS using Infrastructure as Code.
- Develop, deploy, and monitor containerised applications using Docker and Kubernetes/ECS where appropriate.
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines for reliable software delivery.
- Design workflow orchestration systems (e.g. Prefect) for large-scale computational pipelines.
- Improve platform reliability, observability, monitoring, and logging.
- Optimise compute infrastructure for high-performance workloads, including GPU resources.
- Collaborate closely with scientific teams to productionise new computational methods.
- Improve developer experience through automation, documentation, reusable libraries, and engineering best practices.
- Ensure platform security, scalability, and operational excellence.
Required Qualifications
- Experience working in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, or scientific research environments.
- Experience building internal scientific software or laboratory data management systems.
- Strong software engineering experience using Python.
- Experience developing backend services, APIs, and data-driven applications.
- Experience building modern web applications using contemporary front-end technologies.
- Experience working with relational databases and scientific or business data management systems.
- Experience with AWS and cloud-native application development.
- Strong understanding of Docker and containerised deployments.
- Experience with CI/CD tools such as GitHub Actions.
- Experience with Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, AWS CDK, or similar).
- Familiarity with Linux systems and shell scripting.
- Strong debugging, problem-solving, and software design skills.
- Excellent communication skills and experience working within multidisciplinary teams.
Technologies
- Python
- JavaScript/TypeScript (React or similar)
- AWS (Batch, ECS, EC2, S3, IAM, CloudWatch)
- Docker
- Prefect
- GitHub Actions
- Terraform / AWS CDK
- PostgreSQL
- Linux
- Redis (optional)
- Kubernetes (nice to have)
- MLflow (nice to have)
- Prometheus, Grafana & OpenTelemetry (nice to have)
