Staff Software Engineer

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was founded by Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg in 2015 to help solve some of society’s toughest challenges — from eradicating disease and improving education to addressing the needs of our local communities. Our mission is to build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future for everyone.

The Team

• We believe we can help build a future for everyone. 
• We aim to be daring, but humble:  We look for bold ideas — regardless of structure and stage — and help them scale by pairing engineers with subject matter experts to build tools that accelerate the pace of social progress. 
• We want to learn fast, but build for the long-term: We want to iterate fast and help bring new solutions to the table, but we also realize that important breakthroughs often take decades, or even centuries. 
• Stay close to the real problems: We engage directly in the communities we serve because no one understands our society’s challenges like those who live them every day.  

Our success is dependent on building teams that include people from different backgrounds and experiences who can challenge each other's assumptions with fresh perspectives. To that end, we look for a diverse pool of applicants including those from historically marginalized groups — women, people with disabilities, people of color, formerly incarcerated people, people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and/or gender nonconforming, first and second generation immigrants, veterans, and people from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

CZI also supports multiple work options. Learn more about our philosophy and approach here.

The Opportunity

As the Staff Software Engineer  of the Sci Tech org you would be working with a set of highly motivated and talented engineers  to build cloud applications on latest technologies that  scientists rely on every day in ways that enable them to draw more meaningful conclusions, or biological insights, more quickly. By making our tools, methods, and quality data sets accessible to a diverse set of scientists, clinicians, and patient communities, we contribute to the rate at which biomedical science can understand and advance human health.

This role will be focussed on working with Product Managers, UX Design/researchers, data scientists  and backend engineers to design,  build  and maintain performant, scalable and extensible applications for SciTech products. 

Responsibilities will span multiple CZI products over time, with the initial work being on the Infectious Disease products. Science initiatives includes building software such as

• CZ ID This web app focuses on pinpointing  the most relevant pathogenic organisms and providing highly interactive visualizations that  accelerate time to result and can be accessed by both experts and non-tech savvy users.
• Virtual Cells - Building platform for scientists to build, collaborate and contribute to the AI powered virtual cells which would enable scientists to explore the molecular underpinnings of human health and diseases.
• CZ CELLxGENE - a rich data platform with interfaces that enable any computational or biological expert to understand the molecular function of cells and tissues.
• CryoET Data Portal - This is  a web-based interface to a global repository of cryo-electron-tomography data for fostering imaging research

What You'll Do

• Model complex problems and architect large-scale distributed systems.
• Design stable and performant APIs for both internal and client-facing products.
• Work with Product Managers, AI researchers & Scientists to help shape the long-term vision of our technology and products.
• Continually look for ways to improve the SciTech product’s architecture, whether through direct changes or building tools, components, etc.
• Promote engineering excellence through technical leadership, knowledge-sharing, and mentorship
• Coach and mentor junior engineers in the team.
• Solve problems with creativity, speed, & efficiency, learning new technologies along the way.

What You'll Bring

• 8+ years of expertise designing, building, and scaling distributed systems and big data applications.
• Experience working with public cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, GCP, Microsoft Azure, etc.).
• Development experience with relational and non-relational databases.
• Development experience with streaming technologies.
• Expert knowledge of computer science, with strong competencies in data structures, algorithms, and