Software Engineer, Full Stack (Process Execution)

ROLE OVERVIEW

The Process Development team builds the platform that enables biotech and pharmaceutical companies to design, execute, and manage complex scientific manufacturing processes at scale. Our workflow engine is the foundational layer — a system that lets scientists and operators model their processes as structured workflows and then execute them reliably, whether one person is doing everything or an entire team is coordinating across steps.

As a Software Engineer on this team, you'll work full-stack across Workflows, Recipes, and Assays — the core products that Benchling customers depend on to run their operations. You'll build features that show up directly in how scientists manage manufacturing workflows, integrate our products with the wider Benchling ecosystem to help customers automate their work, and shape how AI tooling gets integrated into our products.

TEAM MISSION

The Process Execution (PE) team builds where life sciences move from the physical lab into digital records. We own the workflow engine and multiple products built on top of it (Workflows, Recipes, Assays, Requests, and Worklists). Our goal is to empower biotechs (from startups to multi-nationals) to speedup development and manufacturing of life-saving treatments (the D in R&D). Our foundation is our orchestration platform that allows complex physical processes to be mapped to their digital twins. On top of the platform, the team builds opinionated products to help customers optimize their physical process execution. These are mission critical workflows that our customers (and their customers!) rely on every day, often in regulated manufacturing environments where correctness is non-negotiable.

Aligning with Benchling’s mission of creating the AI scientist, the PE team is pioneering how AI agents can be given tools and skills to optimize both how our customers execute their work and how they analyze and improve their procedures. As a member of the team you’ll have a front-row seat in pushing AI into the physical layers of life sciences development.

The team currently consists of six engineers working across multiple parts of the products with strong latitude to shape core decisions from UI design to UX flows to system architecture and implementation. The work is high-stakes and high-impact: the systems you build are used daily by scientists and operators running mission-critical scientific work, and correctness and attention to detail matter enormously.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build and maintain core features across the workflow engine, recipes, and assays — full-stack across backend services and frontend product surfaces

• Contribute to the data modeling that underpins workflow graph structures, task execution tracking, and work management

• Build products on top of the workflow orchestration engine for industry standard processes

• Collaborate cross-functionally with the AI Agents team to expose both the workflow engine and products built on top to enable AI-assisted scientific work

• Write well-documented, well-tested code and participate actively in code review

• Engage with on-call rotation (approximately 1.5 weeks per person per quarter) to support a customer-facing product used continuously by life science teams

• Partner with product management and design to translate complex scientific workflow needs into intuitive, reliable software

• Embrace AI-assisted development practices — this team expects engineers to work alongside and in parallel with agents as a core part of the development workflow

QUALIFICATIONS

• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience building and maintaining production systems

• Full-stack experience — comfort working across backend (Python or similar) and frontend (React or equivalent)

• Strong product sense with the ability to iterate based on user feedback and evolving requirements

• Collaborative mindset — able to work closely with engineers, PMs, and cross-functional partners across a complex codebase

• Willingness to engage with AI-assisted development tools (Cloud agents, Cursor, Claude Code, or equivalent) as a primary mode of working

• Interest in learning about life sciences — prior biotech knowledge not required, but genuine curiosity is.

• Willing to work onsite in our San Francisco office three days a week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday)

NICE-TO-HAVE-QUALIFICATIONS

• Experience with workflow engines, orchestration systems, or similar data-flow platforms

• Familiarity with regulated software environments (GxP, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, or similar)

• Background in React, Python and PostgreSQL

• Experience working in enterprise B2B SaaS serving large, complex organizations