About the role...
The Opportunity
Inari is transforming agriculture through predictive design and AI - and the platform powering that mission matters enormously. We're looking for a senior engineer who will play a key role in shaping Inari’s Data & AI Platform and be a force multiplier for our engineering team.
This role is for someone who loves the architecture whiteboard, the messy integration problem, the well-designed API, and the occasional "why is this thing broken in prod?" mystery. You'll take ownership of building and scaling the systems and capabilities that bring our Data & AI platform together – powering internal applications, tools, data workflows, AI systems that our scientists and engineers rely on every day to advance our predictive design engine and product pipelines. You’ll be a key member of the platform engineering team while being able to shape the system architecture of Inari.
What You'll Do
- Design, build, and operate core platform services that power Inari's Data & AI ecosystem, including APIs, agentic workflows, MCP servers, and internal developer tooling.
- Build reusable platform foundations (authentication and authorization, CI/CD, infrastructure as code, observability, deployment frameworks) so engineering teams can build, deploy, and operate applications and AI solutions through self-service.
- Build and evolve the integration layer across software, data, AI/ML, and scientific computing platforms. This includes backend services, event-driven systems, and workflow orchestration across AWS, Databricks, SageMaker, Kubernetes, Quilt/S3, and Bedrock.
- Own the reliability, scalability, security, and operational health of platform services, with a steady focus on automation, performance, and developer experience.
- Drive engineering excellence through architecture discussions, code reviews, documentation, and reusable patterns and standards.
What You'll Bring
Required
- 4+ years of experience in software engineering, platform engineering, systems engineering, or related technical roles.
- Strong hands-on experience designing and building distributed systems, platform services, or cloud-native infrastructure, ideally in data, AI, or scientific computing environments.
- Proficiency in Python and hands-on experience with AWS and serverless architecture.
- Experience building and integrating complex systems such as APIs, orchestration frameworks, data pipelines, workflow platforms, internal tools, or AI/ML infrastructure.
- Experience deploying and operating containerized applications in production Kubernetes environments.
- Hands-on experience with infrastructure as code (Terraform preferred), CI/CD pipelines, and observability tooling.
- Clear communication skills, with the ability to explain technical designs, tradeoffs, and operational considerations to engineers and cross-functional partners.
- A bias toward building modular, reusable, scalable systems that teams can use and operate.
Great to have
- Experience building AI-enabled platforms, including agentic systems, MCPs, RAG pipelines, model-serving infrastructure, or similar technologies.
- Familiarity with modern data and AI platforms such as Airflow, Databricks, SageMaker, MLflow, or Quilt.
- Experience implementing authentication, authorization, secrets management, auditability, and least-privilege access patterns.
- Background in life sciences, agriculture, biotechnology, or other scientific computing environments.
Why You'll Love This Role
- Build the platform behind the science. Turn scientists' big ideas into infrastructure that actually ships. We have a collaborative culture that enables our innovation.
- Play in a rare technical sandbox. AI, biology, data, cloud, APIs, MCPs. Boring isn't on the menu.
- Untangle the knots. Apps, pipelines, AI workflows, and scientific systems that grew independently and apart. You get them working together.
- Build for people who'll push the limits. Scientists and engineers need real horsepower, not a toy.
- Leave your fingerprints on what Inari builds next. Your platform decisions become the defaults everyone else builds on.
Inari pays competitively and rewards results.
The salary range for this position is $127,000 - $175,000. Whether you are full-time or part-time, Inari provide three different components of pay – base, short-term incentive, and long-term equity along with a one-time new hire stock option grant. That's rare!
We also offer a comprehensive benefits package including both a Preferred Provider Network (PPO) and High Deductible Health Plan (HDHP) with a company-funded health savings account (HSA), vision, dental, and several flexible spending accounts (FSA), a host of voluntary benefits, and a robust wellness program. In addition, Inari offers a 401k plan with a company matching and a flexible paid time off policy.
Consistent with our commitment to pay transparency, salary range information is being disclosed. Please note that offers are based on the candidate's qualifications & experience as well as market demand.
