{"id":794897,"url":"https://alion.io/job/phylo-member-of-technical-staff-agent-engineer","title":"Member of Technical Staff - Agent Engineer","company":{"id":451625,"name":"Phylo","domain":"phylo.bio","url":"https://alion.io/company/phylo-2","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"is_intermediary":false,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":4,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-09-24T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"AI/ML","role_family":"AI/ML","seniority":"staff","employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["South San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":200000,"max":300000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":300000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Function Calling","optional":false},{"name":"LLM","optional":false},{"name":"Machine Learning","optional":false},{"name":"Tool Use","optional":false},{"name":"Kubernetes","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-07-22T16:51:24Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-07-22","last_verified_at":"2026-09-24T08:10:02Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":63,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":63},"description":"About Phylo\nPhylo is an applied research lab building agentic intelligence to accelerate discovery for every biomedical scientist. We believe AI agents will fundamentally transform how biomedical research is done. Our team brings together engineers, AI researchers, and scientists to build systems capable of carrying out complex scientific work.\nAbout the Role\nWe’re looking for an engineer with research or production experience in AI agents to build and evaluate systems that make our agents capable, reliable, and measurably better.\nThe model is only one part of an agent; the harness shapes how it plans, uses tools, manages context, coordinates work, and recovers from failure. You will own these systems in production and build evaluations to measure whether changes improve performance. The work includes bringing the latest advances and original ideas into production. The ideal candidate combines strong engineering execution with a quantitative mindset and an interest in AI agents for scientific discovery.\nWhat you’ll do as a Member of Technical Staff - Agent Engineer at Phylo:\nAdvance the agent harness by bringing the latest research and open-source developments into production and experimenting with new approaches to multi-agent coordination, model routing, memory, planning, and tool use.\n\nBuild rigorous evaluations that measure agent quality, reliability, latency, and cost on representative scientific tasks.\n\nMonitor agent quality in production, troubleshoot failures quickly in high-ambiguity situations, and translate findings into engineering improvements.\n\nCollaborate on reliable infrastructure for long-running sessions, safe sandboxed execution, background work, and subagents.\n\nPartner with scientists and engineers to evaluate and productionize new agent capabilities.\n\nWhat We're Looking For:\nStrong software engineering experience building production backend systems, infrastructure, or distributed systems.\n\nResearch or production experience in machine learning, or another quantitative discipline.\n\nFamiliarity with LLM APIs, tool calling, agent runtimes, or workflow orchestration.\n\nStrong quantitative judgment and the ability to determine whether an apparent improvement is real, reproducible, and meaningful.\n\nAbility to move between research questions, data analysis, system design, and production implementation.\n\nExperience or strong interest in AI for science, scientific agents, computational research, or automated scientific discovery.\n\nExperience working in AI-native teams that use coding agents or automation extensively.\n\nHigh ownership, clear communication, and strong engineering judgment.\n\nWe care more about demonstrated ability than a particular credential. Relevant backgrounds may include ML or LLM engineering, academic research paired with substantial software development, scientific computing, or production systems engineering with demonstrated quantitative experience.\n\nNice to haves:\nExperience with LLM evaluations, human evaluation, model judges, replay testing, benchmark design, or experiment tracking.\n\nExperience applying classical machine learning methods alongside LLMs in production systems.\n\nExperience with task queues, event streams, Kubernetes, code sandboxes, or durable workflow systems.\n\nAn advanced degree or equivalent experience in machine learning, computational biology, physics, applied mathematics, statistics, or a related field.\n\nWhy Join Us?\nCompetitive salary and equity share in building the future of biomedical discovery\n\nFull medical, dental, and vision coverage, including free therapy sessions and eyewear stipend\n\n401(k) to help you build long-term financial security (US only)\n\nUnlimited PTO to recharge when you need it (US only)\n\nLunch and snacks when you're in the office\n\nRegular team offsites and company events\n\nA culture of excellence and speed - we move fast, think big, and support each other every step of the way\n\nYour work will directly impact our mission to 100X biomedical discoveries through AI","description_format":"text","description_chars":4010,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":["Company events","Equity","Unlimited PTO"],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","AI Agents","Biomedical Engineering"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-12T04:56:25Z"}],"liveness":{"score":14,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.495,"p_room":0.28,"age_days":63,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:10","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-09-24T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":300000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/phylo-member-of-technical-staff-agent-engineer","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/phylo-member-of-technical-staff-agent-engineer.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-24T08:15:25Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers"}}