Senior Software Engineer, Full Stack - Quantafold

About Us

Quantafold is a quantum-inspired drug discovery start-up headquartered in the UAE. We have developed a breakthrough physics-based engine to disrupt de novo protein target modelling. Our engine takes any protein structure and generates 1,000+ amino acid hit sequences against the target in minutes — replacing high-throughput screening entirely. Our ambition extends beyond a discovery service: we intend to build the UAE's first fully integrated pharmaceutical company, using service revenue to fund a proprietary pipeline and, eventually, GMP manufacturing in the UAE.

About Us

Quantafold is a quantum-inspired drug discovery start-up headquartered in the UAE. We have developed a breakthrough physics-based engine to disrupt de novo protein target modelling. Our engine takes any protein structure and generates 1,000+ amino acid hit sequences against the target in minutes — replacing high-throughput screening entirely. Our ambition extends beyond a discovery service: we intend to build the UAE's first fully integrated pharmaceutical company, using service revenue to fund a proprietary pipeline and, eventually, GMP manufacturing in the UAE.

About The Role

This is a hands on founding engineer role who can operate in ambiguity, design real systems, build quickly, and guide others. The Senior Full Stack Engineer will be responsible for designing full stack architectures, developing pipelines, building reliable services, creating reusable foundations, and making sure MVPs are strong enough for real customer validation. The role requires deep software engineering experience across front end, back end, APIs, databases, cloud infrastructure, integrations, security, observability, and product delivery.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the technical design and development of pipelines, full stack products, MVPs, prototypes, internal tools, and customer-facing applications.
• Translate ambiguous business opportunities into technical architecture, delivery milestones, data models, API contracts, and implementation plans.
• Design and build front-end applications using modern frameworks such as React, Next.js, TypeScript, or similar technologies.
• Design and build back-end services using technologies such as Node.js, Python, Java, or similar production-grade stacks.
• Define service boundaries, API contracts, database schemas, authentication flows, authorization models, and integration patterns.
• Build secure and scalable APIs using REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI, webhooks, event-driven patterns, and asynchronous processing where needed.
• Work with relational and non-relational databases such as PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, Redis, Elasticsearch, or vector-enabled stores.
• Design systems that include proper logging, tracing, metrics, audit trails, error handling, retry logic, rate limiting, and operational dashboards.
• Build applications that can integrate with internal platforms, third-party APIs, AI services, payment systems, identity providers, government systems, and enterprise systems.
• Own technical decisions around scalability, reliability, latency, data consistency, security, maintainability, and cost.
• Build reusable engineering foundations such as starter kits, shared components, service templates, deployment templates, API standards, and reference architectures.
• Partner with Staff AI Engineers to integrate AI capabilities into complete products, including RAG flows, agents, AI-powered workflows, document processing, and human review experiences.
• Guide engineers through architecture reviews, code reviews, test planning, production readiness, and incident learning.
• Help define engineering standards for CI/CD, automated testing, environment management, secrets management, release management, and cloud deployment.
• Support customer validation by rapidly improving MVPs based on feedback, usage data, performance insights, and operational issues.
• Contribute to hiring, technical assessment, mentoring, and engineering capability building.

Minimum Qualifications

• Strong experience building and scaling production software products as a full stack engineer, platform engineer, or technical lead.
• Proven ability to lead the technical direction of complex systems with multiple stakeholders and ambiguous requirements.
• Strong front-end experience with React, Next.js, TypeScript, component libraries, state management, forms, accessibility, and performance optimization.
• Strong back-end experience with Node.js, Python, Java, or similar technologies, including service design, API development, background jobs, and integration logic.
• Strong understanding of system design, distributed systems, data modeling, caching, queues, event-driven architectures, idempotency, concurrency, and failure handling.
• Experience designing authentication and authorization using OAuth 2.0, OIDC, SSO, RBAC, ABAC, JWT, service accounts, and secure session management.
• Experience with databases, indexing strategies, migrations, transactions, query optimization, and data lifecycle management.
• Experience deploying and operating applications on AWS, Azure, GCP, or private cloud environments.
• Experience with Docker, Kubernetes, serverless platforms, CI/CD pipelines, infrastructure as code, monitoring, and alerting.
• Good understanding of secure software development, OWASP risks, secrets management, data privacy, encryption, auditability, and compliance requirements.
• Strong experience writing automated tests, including unit, integration, API, contract, and end-to-end tests.
• Ability to make practical trade-offs between MVP speed and production readiness.
• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain technical decisions, risks, and trade-offs to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience building MVPs, innovation platforms, or early stage products that later scaled.
• Experience with AI enabled applications, LLM APIs, RAG, agents, workflow automation, copilots, document processing, or AI assisted operations.
• Experience with regulated domains such as government, fintech, identity, real estate, health, or enterprise platforms.
• Experience building reusable platforms, internal developer tools, design systems, templates, and accelerators.
• Experience working directly with customers to validate product direction and improve user experience.
• Experience with event streaming, message queues, workflow engines, search platforms, analytics platforms, or data pipelines.
• Experience designing systems with strong audit requirements, tenant isolation, role based access, and operational governance.
• Experience in pharma or drug discovery fields is advantageous.

We provide a competitive, tax-free salary and a comprehensive benefits package in a collaborative, innovative and inclusive work environment.

• education allowance
• free on-site meals
• annual flight allowance
• health coverage
• relocation support (if applicable)
• access to well-being activities such as sports and recreational events

We are committed to creating an inclusive and equal opportunity workplace. All qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment.