AI Lab Research Engineer

Your Impact at LILA

We are seeking talented and visionary AI Lab Research Engineer to develop scientific AI models to tackle complex, multi-step problems across domains to join our team. Title will be determined by merit and experience level.

In this role, you will design, train, and deploy advanced AI agents capable of performing sequential decision-making, reasoning, and task completion in scientific contexts.

As an AI Lab Research Engineer at Lila Sciences, you'll work alongside experts in biology, materials science, automation to push the boundaries of what's possible with AI-driven research.

What You'll Be Building

• Agentic AI for science: Systems that perform sequential decision-making and multi-step reasoning to solve domain-specific problems.
• Workflow/code generation: From natural language intent to typed, executable steps for lab instruments.
• Evaluation & reliability: Benchmarks, test suites, and telemetry to measure capability and quantify progress toward scientific goals.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• PhD or Masters in a quantitative discipline (e.g., Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering) with a strong background in machine learning and one domain of science (e.g. biology or materials science).
• Strong grasp of LLMs and agent architectures (planning, tool use, structured function calling, code generation) and how to adapt them to domains.
• Proficiency in modern ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensor Flow, JAX) and experience implementing scalable solutions for complex tasks.
• Comfort collaborating across disciplines and interfacing with simulations and real lab systems.

Bonus Points For

• Building long-horizon agents or RL for control/decision-making; experience with model-based or offline RL.
• Designing domain-specific benchmarks and evaluation harnesses for complex scientific tasks.
• Digital-twin development, calibration, and sim-to-real transfer.
• Publications or open-source contributions in AI for science (especially publications in top-tier conferences like NeurIPS, ICML, AAAI, ICLR).

Location

San Francisco, CA or Cambridge, MA (Hybrid and On-Site available depending on team needs).

Compensation

We offer competitive compensation including bonus potential and generous early equity. The final offer will reflect your unique background, expertise, and impact.

Expected Base Salary Range

$148,000-$240,000 USD

About LILA

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.

LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more a.ai.

Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.

We're All In

Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.

A Note to Agencies

Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science's internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.