Product Engineer
A senior hands-on engineering role building the software BioTrust analysts depend on every day.
- Commitment
- Full-time. We're hiring on either a fixed-term contract or a permanent basis, depending on fit and your situation. We're happy to start as a contract and convert. For the contract path we want to move fast, so ideally you can start immediately.
- Location
- Bay Area and in person for the permanent role, with potential flexibility for contractors. We're open to discussing visa support for the right person.
- Compensation
- $200-250k + equity for the permanent position, depending on experience and seniority.
BioTrust is building the trusted-access layer between frontier AI labs, AI-bio tool developers, gene synthesis providers, and the researchers who use them. We verify once and let researchers be trusted across providers, reducing friction for legitimate science while creating a defensible screening layer against catastrophic misuse.
We're hiring an early engineer to be a primary driver of the software our analysts depend on. This is a senior, high-judgment role, and it is genuinely hands-on.
You will be part of an ambitious, high velocity, mission-focused team directly mitigating AI misuse and building infrastructure for sustainably preventing AI and biosecurity risks.
What you'll do
- Build the applications analysts use to research and make verification decisions, owning them end to end from workflow to UX, client and server logic, and data storage.
- Move fast from idea to production: prototype in several directions, get working software in front of analysts quickly, and harden the directions that prove out.
- Work in lock step with analysts as their methodology evolves, understanding the use case deeply and iterating the product alongside them.
- Integrate AI where it earns its place, including calls on local versus cloud models, data separation, privacy, analyst experience, and evals.
- Set technical foundations with the engineering lead and another engineer, including dev loop, testing, deployment practices, and end-to-end architecture.
- Prioritize ruthlessly with the engineering lead, separating rapid MVP milestones from fast follows and future work.
What this job actually looks like
The codebase is young: prototypes are underway that need to be expanded and hardened into production-grade software. The use case is still being discovered, so requirements shift and the right product is something you'll find by shipping, watching, and iterating rather than by reading a spec.
Expect a lot of prototyping that won't survive, constant judgment about what's worth hardening, and comfort working in ambiguity close to a high-stakes domain.
What we're looking for
- Strong product instincts and frontend/UX ability.
- A fast, reliable executor across the prototype-to-production loop.
- Strong cross-functional collaboration with non-engineers.
- Senior generalist judgment across the stack.
- Clear, balanced communication through high-stakes trade-offs.
- Comfort getting up to speed on biosecurity and AI risk.
Nice to have
- Depth in systems, data modeling, or infrastructure.
- Experience taking prototypes to production on an early-stage team or greenfield codebase.
- Interest or background in biosecurity, AI safety, or high-stakes trust-and-safety domains.
Ready to apply?
Tell us about your experience, what draws you to BioTrust, and the role you want to help shape.
For questions, email kenan@biotrust.org.