Staff Engineer, AI Foundations

Summary

Join Formation Bio, a tech and AI-driven pharma company, as a Staff Engineer to lead our new AI Foundations Team. You will architect and develop our AI Platform, Services, and Governance layer, empowering teams with scalable and secure AI access. This role requires defining the end-to-end design of the platform, establishing best practices for AI model governance, and collaborating with cross-functional teams. You will need a Master's degree or equivalent experience, 8+ years of software development experience, and deep expertise in AI/ML frameworks and cloud platforms. Formation Bio offers a competitive salary, equity, generous perks, hybrid flexibility, and comprehensive benefits. The company prioritizes hiring in NYC and Boston, with remote options for specific locations.

Requirements

• Master’s degree or higher in Computer Science, Engineering, AI, or a related field (or equivalent experience)
• 8+ years of software development experience with a strong track record in building scalable, distributed systems and platforms—preferably within AI/ML contexts
• Proven track record and experience with Build vs Buy decisions
• Deep experience with AI/ML frameworks and libraries (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch) and familiarity with modern tools for model evaluation, profiling, and governance
• Extensive background in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and their respective AI Tooling (Bedrock, Sagemaker, Google Vertex, Azure ML Studio), containerization, and CI/CD methodologies
• Proven expertise in designing and implementing service architectures and building enterprise-grade systems
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
• Demonstrated leadership in cross-functional settings with a passion for mentoring and technical guidance
• Exceptional communication skills with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the end-to-end design of our AI Platform, ensuring robust, scalable, and secure services
• Drive the integration of key initiatives such as model profiling & benchmarking, programmatic model access, evaluation tooling, knowledge graphs, and scalable model deployment
• Establish best practices for AI model governance and operational excellence, setting technical standards that ensure quality, security, and performance
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams—Tech, Data Science, Regulatory, and Quality Assurance —to translate strategic requirements into innovative technical solutions
• Stay current with emerging trends and technologies in AI infrastructure and platform engineering to identify new technical investments and opportunities to enhance our AI capabilities
• Act as an internal evangelist, mentoring teams and deploying technical approaches that help us forward our mission to deliver treatments to patients faster and more efficiently
• Oversee the development and integration of cloud and AI native services, models, and CI/CD pipelines to support continuous delivery
• Ensure the platform is robust, scalable, and can seamlessly support evolving AI models and services

Preferred Qualifications

Experience establishing technical standards and best practices in early-stage or startup environments

Benefits

• Equity
• Generous perks
• Hybrid flexibility
• Comprehensive benefits