Want to know if this job is worth applying to?
San Francisco, California, United States
Onsite
About Plasmidsaurus
Plasmidsaurus is on a mission to accelerate new cures and promote a healthier planet by unlocking a new level of productivity for scientists. Our sequencing services are used daily by thousands of innovators, including Nobel laureates, Fortune 100 pharma, and over 70,000 scientists.
We began by revolutionizing plasmid sequencing, making it exponentially cheaper and faster, with innovative sequencing technologies and a global network of laboratories that turn samples into answers in hours, not weeks.
Now we are expanding that same disruptive model across all of genomics. With the launch of our new RNA-seq service, we are taking a bold step toward our vision to sequence everything, providing scientists everywhere with faster, simpler, and more affordable access to the data that powers discovery.
Every team member at Plasmidsaurus plays a crucial role in driving the future of biotech research. Together, we are building the world’s most efficient sequencing engine that operates overnight, scales globally, and helps scientists make breakthroughs faster than ever before.
Role Overview
At Plasmidsaurus, our infrastructure doesn't just run software. It powers the sequencers, robots, and compute systems that help scientists around the world speed up their research and get to breakthrough discoveries faster. We're looking for a Platform Engineer to build and scale the infrastructure behind our 10 labs worldwide. You'll work across networking, hardware, cloud infrastructure, automation, and security, and you’ll have the freedom to architect solutions to complex engineering challenges. Your work will directly shape how quickly we launch new labs, expand sequencing capacity, and deliver reliable results to scientists solving some of the most important problems in the world.
What You'll Do
Architect and Scale Our Global Lab Networks
Design and scale the networks powering sequencers, robotics, and compute across our 10 global labs. Own network architecture and reliability, including pfSense, MikroTik, HA firewalls, VLANs, DHCP/DNS, Tailscale, and inter-site connectivity.
Architect and deploy networking for new labs and expansions, from rack and switch infrastructure to high-speed 10Gb connectivity between sequencers and storage.
Automate network provisioning and configuration with Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD to make infrastructure deployments faster, more consistent, and reliable.
Build Reliable, Scalable Lab Compute Infrastructure
Build and improve the infrastructure supporting our production hardware, including Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sequencers, Opentrons robots, lab instruments, GPU clusters, and storage. Own connectivity, observability, and scalability as sequencing capacity grows.
Build and maintain secure, automated device identity and access systems using PKI, AWS IAM Roles Anywhere, and SSH.
Engineer Security Into Our Infrastructure
Own and strengthen the security of our cloud infrastructure, web applications, and APIs through proactive testing, AI-assisted red teaming, and close collaboration with Product Engineering to resolve vulnerabilities.
Build and operate vulnerability management across cloud infrastructure, lab devices, and application dependencies, including scanning, patching, and secrets management.
Lead technical security incident response, from detection and containment through resolution and postmortems, continuously improving our ability to prevent and respond to threats.
You are someone who:
Loves solving hard infrastructure problems, especially where hardware, networking, and software intersect.
Thinks like a builder. You automate repetitive work, improve the systems you inherit, and enjoy taking projects from design through production.
Has deep technical curiosity and enjoys experimenting with new technologies, tools, and approaches.
Is proactive about production reliability and security, anticipating problems rather than waiting for things to break.
Thrives in high autonomy environments. You take ownership, move quickly, and make solid decisions about tradeoffs.
Is a team player. Communicates clearly, shares knowledge, and makes those around you better.
Qualifications
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience
7+ years of experience in platform, infrastructure, systems, or security engineering, ideally supporting physical production environments.
Strong experience automating infrastructure with Python, Terraform, Ansible, and CI/CD workflows using GitHub Actions, including network device configuration and provisioning.
Deep networking expertise, including routing, VLANs, firewalls, DHCP/DNS, VPNs (including Tailscale), and high-availability architectures. Experience with pfSense or MikroTik strongly preferred.
Hands-on experience in AWS, including networking (VPC, site-to-cloud connectivity), IAM, and containerized workloads (ECS, Lambda)
Excellent Linux systems administration skills, including system services, deployments, containers, and infrastructure configuration.
Hands-on security engineering experience, including web/API penetration testing or red teaming, vulnerability and dependency scanning, and incident response.
Ownership of production reliability, including on-call responsibilities, diagnosing complex infrastructure failures, and restoring service quickly.
Experience using AI coding agents as a primary development tool across the software lifecycle, including infrastructure automation, development, and security testing.
Experience with PKI, certificate management, and secrets management, ideally including internal CAs, ACME, or AWS Private CA.
Experience building observability for fleets of production devices and services, including metrics, logging, and alerting.
We encourage you to apply even if your experience doesn't perfectly align with the job description as we seek out diverse and creative perspectives. Team members who love to learn and collaborate in an inclusive environment will thrive with us. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. If you need additional accommodations to feel comfortable during your interview process, please let us know at careers@plasmidsaurus.com.
