Edison Scientific is a San-Francisco-based startup building AI “scientists” that automate research tasks from literature review to molecular design.
ABOUT US Edison Scientific builds and deploys AI scientist agents to accelerate science and the development of new medicines. We are an ambitious team run by scientists and engineers from leading institutions across biology, physics, chemistry, and AI. THE ROLE We're looking for an engineer to join the team responsible for building Edison's AI agents. This team owns the development and design of our AI scientist agent, Kosmos. You'll own the development and maintenance of production agents, prototype new capabilities with our internal science and engineering teams, and shape how our platform evolves. You'll spend some time with customers to understand real workflows and validate what you're building, but your primary focus is on the agents themselves – making them more capable, more reliable, and more useful across the life sciences. RESPONSIBILITIES - Architect, implement, and maintain the AI agents that power Edison's platform, from prototype through production. - Work with our internal science and engineering teams to explore new agent architectures, prompting strategies, tool integrations, and evaluation frameworks. - Develop reusable infrastructure – agent skills, tool-use pipelines, benchmarks – that improves every agent on the platform. - Spend time with R&D partners (~30%) to understand their workflows, test what you've built in real environments, and bring insights back to the team. - Translate field insights and internal research into product direction – help the team prioritize what to build next. QUALIFICATIONS - Typically, 5+ years of professional software engineering experience, with production experience shipping systems that real users depend on. - Experience building LLM-powered tools or applications: prompting, context engineering, agent architectures, evaluation frameworks. - Strong engineering foundation in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Mathematics, Physics, Data Science, or a related technical field. - Proficiency in Python and/or TypeScript, with comfort picking up new tools and frameworks quickly. - Able to work across engineering, science, and product teams. - Comfortable building from scratch, driving clarity in ambiguous situations, and wearing multiple hats. BONUS POINTS FOR - Experience in life sciences, biomedical research, scientific computing, or technical R&D workflows. - Experience building agent systems, tool-use pipelines, or evaluation/benchmarking frameworks for AI applications. - Contributions to open-source scientific or AI tooling. WHY JOIN US? We're a fast-moving, mission-driven culture where smart people do their best work and actually enjoy doing it. We also offer full-time employees the following: - Competitive salary and equity - Full healthcare coverage; we pay 100% of premiums for you and your dependents - Support for growing families, including a yearly new parent stipend and fertility coverage through Carrot - Mental health support through Rula, our in-network therapist and psychiatrist network with fast availability - 12 weeks of paid parental leave for maternity, paternity, and adoption - Pet care support with a yearly employer-funded stipend for your animal companions - Commuter benefits so you can pay for transit and parking with pre-tax dollars - 401(k) company matching - $300 health and wellness benefit quarterly - Lunch is on us every day you're in the office, and dinner is on us when you're working late - Regular team off-sites and company events Edison Scientific is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.