Software Engineer Intern at Benchling San Francisco Benchling is a platform for ground breaking life science research: gene therapy, cellular immunotherapy, synthetic biology, and more. Our mission is to accelerate research and magnify its impact by bringing modern software to this historically underserved space. Research today means disparate tools, manual data entry, and lots of Excel and paper. We provide an integrated platform for designing and running experiments, analyzing data, and sharing results. Our customers range from pharmaceutical giants to biotech startups to academic labs: scientists are able to work faster, and organizations can collect and tap into their vast institutional knowledge for the first time. We're looking for interns to join our 2019 intern class. As an intern, you'll be entrusted with a significant degree of ownership to work alongside full-time engineers who hail from MIT, Google, Facebook, Stripe, and more. Our past interns have built DNA search engines, key pieces of AWS infrastructure, and analytics pipelines. You'll learn how a startup works and how to build high quality software, quickly. About the Team Benchling was founded in 2013 by a team of MIT graduates and has since raised funding from investors that include Y Combinator, Andreessen Horowitz, Thrive, and Benchmark. Our small team of 40 includes former Salesforce executives, tech industry veterans, and biology PhDs. We hire people who love learning and learn quickly - building tools for science requires a scientific mindset. You will: * Work with and learn from a strong team of engineers hailing from MIT, CMU, Facebook, Stripe, and more. We grow our interns through mentorship and ownership. * Own projects end-to-end, from initial design, to prototype, to large-scale rollout. * Design and implement backend models and API endpoints for complex scientific workflows. * Design and implement rich frontend components and architecture. We build and operate one of the largest, richest React applications out there and power complex scientific analyses. You may be a fit for this role if you: * Have strong background in computer science. * Build software with a product-first approach. You ship code quickly and care about the real world impact of your code. * Have strong abilities in problem solving and iterating on feedback. * Enjoy ownership and building key pieces of product. * Are interested in learning more about life science (prior knowledge is not required; desire to learn is a must). You might work on: Check out our engineering blog for some examples of past work. Here are some other examples of recent and future projects: * Tools to simulate DNA assembly - computers can assist scientists by informing scientific decisions with complex calculations. Our bulk assembly tool allows scientists to simulate constructing hundreds of DNA constructs in parallel, visualizing the end result and highlighting potential issues. * Complex querying and visualization tools - The big advantage of keeping all your data stored in one system is that you can query that data all at once, without digging up multiple sources. This works best when you can query Benchling the same way you can query a database: by choosing from a large number of possible filters on any related objects, joining together various sources, and performing aggregations. We want to enable this in a user-friendly experience, without leaving your browser. * A customizable computation platform - Biologics are typically large protein complexes composed of a number of shared parts. We want to let scientists specify computations that can aggregate data across all of these related entities to surface derived values, which can be used in everything from data analysis to naming schemes. Scientists may develop custom protein analysis algorithms or proprietary validation logic - they'll be able to hook in custom code and push that computation to Benchling. * Data warehouse as a product - customers can click a button and spin up a fully-managed, query-able warehouse with all their Benchling data in one place. Customers get the full power of Redshift/Postgres without having to manage ETL pipelines or tune Postgres configuration values. * A new permissions system - Our existing permission system relies on Read/Write/Admin access that can only be applied at the top level of the file hierarchy. To roll out to enterprises with 500+ users, we need to offer them fine-grained control around exactly what actions a user can take and let them manage these in a hierarchical fashion. Our Values * Empower through information. We explain the why behind every decision, unless there are highly sensitive circumstances. We're honest about how we're doing, especially in difficult times. We believe that sharing information builds trust and enables better decision-making. * Rely on tenacity. Hard work is one of the greatest factors to determine success and is fully under our control. We must make the most of every day by bringing the highest level of determination. Dreaming big is not enough. * Raise the bar. Pushing ourselves and others to improve will be uncomfortable and at times result in failure. However, it's critical to our success. We're dedicated to creating a place where everyone feels challenged to improve. * Build a lever. We choose to build tools and infrastructure that will help others make world-changing innovations. There's less glory in it, but in the words of Archimedes, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." Perks and Benefits * Beautiful, light-filled office in the Financial District of SF * Monthly health amp; wellness stipend (up to $100/month on a gym membership, running shoes, or even a massage) * Work with a talented yet humble team * Meals and snacks covered * Spotify Premium * 401k * Medical, dental, and vision insurance * Commuter benefits * Happy hours, company and team wide social events We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status.