Senior AI Backend Engineer

About Us
Owkin is an AI company on a mission to solve the complexity of biology. It is building the first Biology Super Intelligence (BASI) by combining powerful biological large language models, multimodal patient data, and agentic software. At the heart of this system is Owkin K, an AI copilot and its new LLM fine-tuned on biology called Owkin Zero, used by researchers, clinicians, and drug developers to better understand biology, validate scientific hypotheses, and deliver better diagnostics and therapies faster.

This position is remote and based in the UK or Germany.

About the Role
As a Senior AI Software Engineer, you will build the world leading Agentic AI product for biomedical researchers by combining robust engineering practices with cutting-edge AI technologies. You'll be working on a real-time system that integrates LLMs, tool-calling, and interactive UI elements, making sure our users can seamlessly engage with complex domain specific data.

This role requires balancing traditional engineering principles with innovative approaches when integrating LLMs and AI throughout our technology stack. If you love building and refining a dynamic product, this role is for you.

Your seniority and experience will be crucial in guiding the multidisciplinary team to make strategic decisions and empowering team members.

In particular, you will

• Collaborate within a multi-disciplinary team of product managers, designers, software engineers, machine learning and biomedical scientists.
• Design, build, and maintain scalable, reliable AI systems.
• Drive technical decisions and provide context-aware solutions for AI systems in biological research.
• Leverage and pioneer evaluation methodologies to ensure continuous product improvement.
• Experiment with cutting-edge industry solutions — orchestration patterns, fine-tuning, specialized monitoring, feedback loops.
• Lead core stack component development focusing on sustainability, scalability, security, reliability, and performance.
• Foster team growth by sharing expertise and mentoring colleagues through code reviews, technical discussions, and knowledge sharing.

About You

• You're driven by impact — excited to empower biomedical researchers with intuitive, AI-driven tools that unlock scientific discovery.
• Strong collaborative skills with an open, pragmatic mindset; you thrive in multidisciplinary environments.
• Clear and effective communicator who can translate technical complexity into actionable decisions for the team.
• Proven track record leading software development at scale in production environments.
• Deep understanding of system architecture, infrastructure design, and building resilient distributed systems.
• Extensive experience with production environments: continuous deployment, high availability, observability, and security.
• Curiosity and ideally hands-on experience with AI systems — from integrating LLMs to evaluating their performance in real-world workflows.
• Passion for user experience and product thinking.
• Fluent English, both written and spoken.
• Stack: Python, Kubernetes, AWS

What We Offer

• Flexible work organization
• Friendly and informal working environment
• Opportunity to work with an international team with high technical and scientific backgrounds