Head of Software Engineering
Adaptyv · Lausanne / Hybrid / Remote
About this role
## Head of Software Engineering **Adaptyv** is building an automated lab that lets AI agents run biology experiments. We’re entering the era of *agentic science*—where AI can design novel proteins, propose hypotheses, and iterate on results—but experiments still require manual, months-long wet lab work. We’re building the infrastructure that gives AI agents access to the physical world. Our automated lab is powered by a deep software + hardware stack: lab instruments (worth millions of USD) reverse-engineered into API-controllable hardware, dozens of devices orchestrated through complex workflows, full observability, processing pipelines for messy physical-world data, and AI systems that troubleshoot production results and accelerate assay development. --- ## About the Role You’ll be a **player-coach**: you still ship code, but you also **own the engineering roadmap, team structure, and technical direction**. You’ll translate company strategy into engineering priorities, ensure the right things get built in the right order, and help a small, high-output team scale without losing speed. This is **not** a management-track role where you stop building. You’ll stay hands-on—especially as AI agents reshape what a small engineering team can accomplish. **Day-to-day may include:** - Owning the **engineering roadmap** (what to build, defer, and kill) - Setting **technical direction and architecture** across frontend, backend, data pipelines, and lab-hardware integration - **Shipping code** on the highest-leverage problems (not just reviewing) - **Hiring, growing, and setting the bar** for a team that ships fast and holds quality high - Ensuring reliability: when the lab software breaks, **real experiments fail** and **customers are affected** - Building **AI-assisted development practices** into a genuine speed advantage --- ## What We’re Looking For - **Still building:** you’ve shipped production software for years and want to build and lead at the same time - **Built teams:** you’ve hired, managed, and developed engineers in a startup/high-growth environment - **Roadmap ownership:** you’ve shaped engineering roadmaps and made pragmatic tradeoffs to keep shipping and prevent scope creep - **Technical breadth:** strong architectural judgment across frontend, backend, data, and infrastructure (and knowing when to go deep vs delegate) - **AI-native:** you already build with AI agents/coding tools and have a point of view on how they change team workflow - **Interest in biology:** no background required, but the product runs biology experiments in the physical world - **High-autonomy, founder mindset:** you work on what matters most with open context and vision --- ## Application **We are reviewing applicants on a rolling basis.**
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