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 AI Simulation (AISim) division develops and applies Large Quantitative Models (LQMs) grounded in physics, chemistry, and biology to simulate molecular behavior with scientific precision. We are building a first-of-its-kind simulation platform that accelerates discovery in the physical world across biopharma and advanced materials. As an Engineering Manager, you will lead the backend generalists responsible for the core functionalities, APIs, and data planes that power our R&D efforts.
You will be the bridge between visionary research and production-grade engineering, leading a multidisciplinary team of experts to deliver project goals and drive adoption of transformative tooling. Your mission is to own the technical strategy for the platform's development, establish rigorous engineering best practices, and mentor a team of customer-obsessed engineers to see their impact in real-time as they support world-changing scientific discovery.
Key Responsibilities
Lead and Mentor: Grow a high-performing team of backend engineers, managing career development and fostering a culture of continuous growth and humility.
Orchestrate Execution: Manage sprint ceremonies and planning meetings to align team efforts with strategic product goals, maintaining a tight feedback loop between engineering and end-users.
Maintain quality: manage tech debt to an appropriate level in a fast-moving, early stage product. Constantly evaluate the tradeoff between building durable, hardened software and scrappy prototypes.
Disentangle dependencies and schedules: Manage delivery, scheduling, and timelines to optimize predictability of delivery.
Drive technical decision-making: Own the technical direction and architectural discussions for the AISim simulation and data platform, ensuring solutions are maintainable, scalable, and secure. Maintain coordination with other engineering teams where technical decisions have cross-team impacts.
Collaborate Cross-Functionally: Work closely with researchers, product managers, and internal stakeholders to translate complex scientific requirements into clear technical deliverables and implementation plans.
Maintain Technical Excellence: Remain hands-on with code reviews and critical design decisions, establishing best practices for CI/CD pipelines, API design, and cloud infrastructure.
Essential Skills & Experience
10+ years of software engineering industry experience including at least 4 years in a management role with a proven track record of remaining technically hands-on while leading and growing engineering teams.
Proven track record of shipping high quality software with sustained high velocity and predictability.
Experience leading teams building early-stage products, and making staffing, technical, and other planning decisions in such an environment.
Deep understanding of software design principles, architectural patterns, and building cloud-based SaaS products.
Strong experience with GCP (or another major cloud provider) including networking, compute, and container orchestration.
Demonstrated ability to manage complex data systems, including knowledge of ORMs, schemas, and transactional vs. analytic databases.
Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence cross-functional teams and translate customer requirements into high-impact solutions.
Highly Desired Skills & Experience
Domain experience in drug discovery, cheminformatics, or advanced materials, particularly applying AI/ML systems to these scientific fields.
Experience building compute and data platforms for scientists that orchestrate large amounts of compute, data, training, and inference.
Background in supporting secure enterprise deployments in regulated or security-sensitive environments.
Why Join Us?
We offer a comprehensive and competitive benefits package designed to support your health, financial well-being, and life outside of work.
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: Flexible paid time off, company-wide seasonal breaks, and support for flexible work arrangements that enable sustainable performance.
Career Development: 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
