At a Glance
- Tasks: Design and implement scalable pipelines for biological data processing and analysis.
- Company: Join Helical, a pioneering tech company transforming drug discovery with innovative software solutions.
- Benefits: Competitive salary, equity, and benefits in a dynamic work environment.
- Other info: Opportunity to shape a category-defining company with high ownership and collaboration.
- Why this job: Make a real impact in biology by bridging data science and software engineering.
- Qualifications: MSc or PhD in relevant field and 2+ years of software development experience.
The predicted salary is between 60000 - 80000 £ per year.
Helical is building the in-silico labs for biology. Drug discovery still relies on wet labs: slow, expensive, and constrained by physical trial-and-error. Helical is changing that. We build the application layer that makes Bio Foundation Models usable in real-world drug discovery, enabling pharma and biotech teams to run millions of virtual experiments in days, not years. Today, leading global pharma companies already use Helical, and we’re at the start of a highly ambitious growth journey.
We’re a founder-led, talent-dense team building a category-defining company from Europe. We care deeply about the quality of our work, move fast, and expect ownership. If you’re excited by complexity, real responsibility, and shaping how a company actually operates as it scales, you’ll feel at home here.
About the Role
We are looking for a Software Developer with a strong background in computational biology or bioinformatics to join our core product development team. This unique role bridges cutting-edge biological data science and software engineering, helping bring novel bio foundation models into production and optimize workflows for biological data processing and model execution. The ideal candidate is passionate about biology, enjoys coding and problem solving at scale, and is eager to collaborate across teams of ML scientists, backend engineers, and biologists.
Responsibilities
- Design, implement, and maintain scalable pipelines for biological data processing and analysis
- Integrate and optimize Bio Foundation Models for production use, collaborating with ML researchers
- Develop tools and services for data visualization, annotation, and quality control of biological datasets
- Collaborate closely with AI infrastructure and software engineers to improve workflow reliability and scalability
- Contribute to the architecture and implementation of backend services and APIs supporting biological workflows
Requirements
- MSc or PhD in Biology, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, or a closely related life sciences field
- 2+ years of professional software development experience
- Strong Python foundations; comfortable with package structure, clean code patterns, and debugging across complex codebases
- Hands-on experience with the modern single-cell stack: AnnData, scanpy, scib, scipy, and related tools
- Ability to assess whether model predictions make biological sense; understanding of experimental design, perturbation biology, and evidence in a discovery context
- Comfortable working with large biological datasets, understanding file formats (h5ad, csv, parquet), and writing efficient data processing code
- Familiarity with Git workflows and collaborative development practices
Nice to Have
- Exposure to bio foundation models
- Experience with pytest and test-driven development practices
- Familiarity with cloud development (AWS, GCP, or Azure)
- Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated deployment workflows
- Working knowledge of Docker and containerised development environments
- Experience in pharma or biotech
Opportunity to shape a category-defining company at an inflection point with high ownership, direct impact, and close collaboration with founders. Competitive Salary, Equity and Benefits.
Software Developer - Biology employer: Helical Ltd.
Helical is an exceptional employer for Software Developers in Biology, offering a unique opportunity to work at the forefront of drug discovery technology. With a strong emphasis on collaboration and ownership, employees are empowered to make a direct impact while working alongside a talented team in a fast-paced, innovative environment. The company provides competitive salaries, equity, and benefits, fostering a culture that values quality work and personal growth as it scales its groundbreaking solutions.
