Mithrl — Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer

Mithrl — Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer Type: Full-time | On-site | San Francisco, CA Compensation: $175K–$270K + 0.2–0.6% equity Hiring count: 8 Visa sponsorship: Open to visa transfers (e.g. OPT, H-1B transfers). [Conflict: intake call said open to new H-1Bs too. Confirm.] Reports to: Hiring Manager (LinkedIn) About Mithrl Mithrl is a Series A biotech AI startup building a "Scientific Decision Engine" for R&D. Using only natural language, its platform builds custom discovery-analysis workflows (omics and beyond) with full transparency and reproducibility, on-demand in minutes rather than weeks. The platform is used daily by researchers at major pharma and industrials including J&J, Roche, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Siemens. Founded: 2023 | Team size: 25 | Total funding: $30M Series A (~$100M valuation), led by Obvious Ventures Industry: Software Development, AI, Life Sciences, Enterprise Website: mithrl.com Office: San Francisco, CA Why Candidates Should Join Real impact: The platform is used daily by world-class researchers at J&J, Roche, Eli Lilly, AstraZeneca, and Siemens, compressing months of drug-discovery analysis into minutes. Hypergrowth: 12x YoY revenue growth ($0 to $2M in year one, on track past $10M this year); three enterprise deals closed in a single week. Greenfield ownership: Build V1/V2 of a product enterprise pharma is already paying for, with end-to-end ownership from concept to production. Career accelerator: Engineering scaling from 10 to 30 by EOY and 60–70 the year after; tech-lead and manager paths are imminent. Intake Call Summary Series A biotech startup accelerating drug discovery with AI; $30M Series A led by Obvious Ventures at ~$100M valuation. Team of 25, all SF-based, strong preference for 5 days/week in office. Hiring a Full Stack Engineer with backend expertise, senior-to-staff level, to build V2 of the product (front and back end). 4+ years experience, ideally startup or product-focused background. (Note: the Role Requirements badge lists 10+ years as Required. See flags.) Python and React preferred; open to bioinformatics/biochem backgrounds who moved into software. Salary $175K–$280K, equity 0.3–0.6%. Open to relocation and visa sponsorship, including new H-1Bs. Looking to hire 8–15 engineers by EOY; engineering is the bottleneck; security and scalability are critical for enterprise. Ideal profile: curious, positive, a builder (not a maintainer), comfortable with ambiguity. Interview: screen with Kelly, then optional CEO chat (Vivek), then two technical Zoom rounds, then onsite. The Role A Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer to build foundational systems across frontend and backend as Mithrl scales its core product to meet surging enterprise demand. What You'll Be Doing Build new product features and systems from scratch across frontend and backend Design, build, and own scalable backend services, APIs, and data pipelines across the application, identity, data-storage, and ML layers Ship in fast sprint cycles, contributing to production within your first few weeks Collaborate with engineers, PMs, designers, and AI scientists to turn complex scientific workflows into intuitive, high-performance software Own features end-to-end from development through production, iteration, and scale Tech stack: Python, Django, React, GraphQL, AWS, GCP, Azure, SQL, REST APIs Qualifications Seniority 10+ years professional full-stack or backend engineering, not including internships [Required] (conflict: 4+ YOE stated in the job description, intake, and the "Senior/Staff" title. See flags.) Work Experience Built products at early-stage or high-growth startups, preferably as a founder or early employee [Must have] Shipping and owning production systems used by real customers [Must have] Designing and working with scalable systems, databases, and data-intensive applications [Required] Education BS in Computer Science, STEM, or a related technical field [Required] Hard Skills Strong proficiency in modern frameworks like Python and React [Must have] Building backend services and REST APIs; Django a plus [Required] Familiarity with GraphQL and cloud infrastructure like AWS [Strongly preferred] Soft Skills Intellectually curious and excited to learn; asks questions and engages deeply with the product and problem space [Required] Positive and collaborative; thrives in a high-communication, in-person team culture [Required] Miscellaneous Based in or willing to relocate to SF and work 4–5 days in-office [Must have] Demonstrated interest in life sciences, drug discovery, or computational biology [Strongly preferred] Traits to Avoid Repeated job hopping: multiple stints under 8 months Only life-science / big-pharma experience (e.g. Genentech, Roche); not the software background sought Big-tech-only backgrounds with no product-forward or startup exposure Role Details Salary: $175K–$270K (intake mentioned up to $280K) Equity: 0.2–0.6% (why-join copy and intake said 0.3–0.6%) On-site policy: 5 days in-person, SF office near Montgomery BART (requirement states 4–5 days) Visa sponsorship: Open to visa transfers (OPT, H-1B transfers); intake also mentioned new H-1Bs Employment type: Full-time Location: San Francisco, CA Screening Questions Are you based in or willing to relocate to San Francisco for an in-person (4–5 days/week) role? What is your salary expectation? How actively are you exploring new opportunities? Interview Process Stage 1 — Submit candidate The hiring manager notifies whether they want to proceed. Stage 2 — Recruiter Screen (30 min) Background, motivation, and basic fit. Assesses startup experience, interest in Mithrl's mission, and compensation expectations. Stage 3 — CEO Intro (Optional, 30 min) Optional informational with CEO Vivek on the product, technology, and company trajectory. Most candidates opt in. Stage 4 — Technical Interview 1 (45 min) Conducted by the CEO. Coding fundamentals via a live Python exercise on CodePad, plus a walkthrough of 2–3 past projects. Stage 5 — Technical Interview 2 (45 min) A deeper, tailored coding challenge on CodePad based on the candidate's lean (frontend, backend, or infra). No LeetCode. Conducted by the CEO. Stage 6 — On-Site (2–2.5 hrs) In-person at the SF office. No coding: whiteboarding, software design architecture, and a show-and-tell of 1–2 projects. Stage 7 — Reference Check Can run in parallel with the offer stage. Stage 8 — Offer Extended (Willem Hartog Urreta) Stage 9 — Candidate Hired Ideal Companies & Backgrounds Updated Apr 25, 2026 High-growth Bay Area product-focused startups (Series A–C) with strong full-stack cultures Watershed, Lumos Labs (Lumosity), Vercel, Retool, Replit, Linear Technology, Airtable, ZipRecruiter, Notion, Coda Mid-stage startups past early traction, where engineers built 0-to-1 products Ramp, Brex, Flexport, Vanta, Ashby, Instawork, Optomi, Webflow, Mercury, Hearsay Systems AI/ML startups with data-intensive, product-facing platforms Cohere, Baseten, Weights & Biases, Snorkel AI, Modal Labs, Anyscale, Hebbia, Glean, Scale AI, Labelbox Life sciences / biotech software (software-first, not legacy pharma IT) Benchling, insitro, Recursion, Cellarity, Deepcell, Tempus AI, Eikon Therapeutics, Atomic AI, Gandeeva Therapeutics Developer tools and data platform startups with strong product-engineering DNA PostHog, Hasura, Dagster Labs, Supabase, Observable, Streamlit, Prefect, PlanetScale, dbt Labs, Hexaware Technologies Non-ideal: large financial services / enterprise with legacy stacks Fidelity Investments, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Charles Schwab, Mastercard, Bloomberg, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Visa Non-ideal: large life science / big pharma Genentech, Roche, Amgen Avoid Expo Ideal Candidate Profiles For reference only. Do not source these specific profiles. Prashant Khanduri (Rank #1) — LinkedIn Staff Engineer, Distributed Systems & Platform, 01 to Scale | SF Bay Area Waterloo grad (co-op structure means ~2 years of built-in real experience) At Affirm and Hearsay in their early days; strong early-stage signal Went from engineering manager back to IC; prefers building Former founder (Sn126, ~5 years); understands startup pace firsthand Watch: 17 YOE (higher comp expectations); currently SentiLink (later-stage), confirm genuine early-stage interest Simon S. (Rank #2) — LinkedIn Software Engineer | SF Bay Area Palantir background (quality engineers there are infra/ops-strong, not traditional QA) Grew from quality engineer to software engineer at Palantir Left Palantir for startups (LeapYear, then Opto); 4+ years at Opto Watch: Opto is pivoting to AI (confirm stack still relevant); confirm product engineering vs pure infrastructure Sree Palaparthi (Rank #3) — LinkedIn Engineering | San Francisco Joined Drafted at seed stage and received a return offer 4+ years at Instawork post-acquisition; consistency and loyalty CS Master's from Northeastern The 'solid but not shiny' startup profile prioritized over FAANG Watch: no visible promotion trajectory; low likelihood to leave, confirm he is ready to move Rejected Candidate Feedback Emphasize startup & founder experience: prioritize candidates with clear 01, greenfield building experience and long tenure (8+ months), filtering out those mostly from big tech or with short stints. Ensure technical depth & end-to-end ownership: candidates must have proven production shipping of backend services, APIs, and data pipelines using Python/React/Django, with concrete impact stories. Confirm SF-based / on-site alignment: only submit candidates willing and able to work 5 days in SF. Reduce volume, focus on quality: slow down new submissions and double-check backgrounds against the early-stage startup mandate before scheduling interviews.