Staff Software Engineer (Clinical Trial AI)
ScrumAID
San Francisco, CA · Posted November 1, 2026
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November 2026
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Pay compared with the market
This listing does not state pay. Across 426 open staff software engineer listings that state pay, the middle half runs $225,000 to $271,000 and the median is $242,500.
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How AI is used in this kind of work
Among software developers, AI is already used for some of the tasks. Measured exposure for software developers: 29% (some).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
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About the job
A seed-stage healthcare technology startup that builds AI agents to speed up clinical trials is hiring a staff-level engineer to anchor its small engineering group. You would code and review daily, guide more junior engineers and shape brand-new offerings on a platform that many research sites already rely on.
Your scope
Take ownership of AI-powered products from concept to shipping, such as agentic workflows and LLM features with evals running in production
Lead and coach three junior engineers while establishing norms around reviews, process and collaboration
Collaborate with the CTO, product and the customer success team to learn what customers need and define zero-to-one products
Design and ship full-stack applications covering frontend, backend, infrastructure and data pipelines
Influence engineering culture and architecture while the company is still forming them
Qualifications
Eight or more years of full-stack product engineering, with recent hands-on experience shipping LLM features or AI agents to production
Has served as tech lead or de facto technical anchor, coordinating large projects
Ability to own a feature end to end; backend-leaning generalists welcome
A mentor who can show a young team what good engineering looks like
Experience shipping customer-facing zero-to-one products; Python, TypeScript and React in the stack
Helpful: evals or LLM observability setups, startup plus larger-company exposure, interest in life sciences
Hybrid in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visa transfers considered.