Software Engineer, ML Infrastructure
Palo Alto, CA$191k - $237k + equity + bonusfull-timePosted 1w ago
About the role
Engineering role focused on data and evaluation of ML infrastructure for Arc's virtual cell models, starting with Model Performance Dashboard and data-to-training pipeline, with potential to grow into lab-in-the-loop and scalable ML infrastructure responsibilities.
Responsibilities
- Own how Arc measures the performance of its virtual cell models, starting with the backend of our Model Performance Dashboard, within first two months.
- Decide with the ML team which evaluation tools are needed, design and build them for researchers to evaluate and compare models and measure dataset version impact on model performance.
- Redesign the pipeline that turns single-cell data into training sets for virtual cell models, run it with AI agents and automated quality checks to determine dataset readiness for model training.
- Own the lab-in-the-loop infrastructure translating model performance results into experimental directions for Arc's labs, collaborating with science leads.
- Build or buy validation frameworks (tests, evals, QC gates, policies) enabling agent-written code/apps to ship with minimal human review, starting with the team and extending to other Arc scientists.
- Own engineering that makes ML training and evaluation fast, reliable, and scalable, including train-and-eval CI, multi-node training support, and monitoring GPU utilization and throughput.
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree with 8 years of relevant experience, or Master’s degree with 6 years of relevant experience.
- Experience owning a production data or ML platform end-to-end (pipelines, storage, versioning) and setting its technical direction.
- Ability to design and build systems with AI tools and agents, with verifiable outputs via evals, QC gates or tests.
- Ability to learn an unfamiliar technical domain well enough to make design calls.
- Experience working directly with stakeholders to gather requirements without a PM intermediary.
- Ability to improve teammates through code review, pairing, and documenting patterns.
- Experience diagnosing and fixing performance problems in Python or PyTorch systems using profilers and measurements (GPU utilization, memory, data loading).
- Onsite work in Palo Alto at least 3 days a week.
Skills
Required:Model Performance Dashboard back-endML evaluation toolingSingle-cell data to training pipelineLab-in-the-loop infrastructureValidation frameworks
Nice to have:Distributed training & performance
Benefits
- N/A
Last updated Oct 14, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
About Arc Institute
A full-stack institute for AI and biology research.
Arc Institute is a nonprofit research organization headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
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