Engineering Manager

About AQEMIA

AQEMIA is a drug invention company dedicated to creating entirely new medicines to address major unmet medical needs. At the core of our mission is QEMI, our proprietary molecule-invention platform, which uniquely combines cutting-edge science with advanced technology. Powered by physics-based modeling, statistical mechanics, and generative AI, QEMI allows our teams to design novel drug candidates from first principles.   What makes AQEMIA different is our commitment to true innovation: our research is dedicated to the invention of new molecular entities, not the refinement of existing ones. We focus on inventing never-before-seen molecules, without relying on experimental data, and advancing them into a growing pipeline of proprietary programs and strategic partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies.   Our most advanced preclinical programs are currently in vivo optimization, targeting diseases still waiting for effective treatments, offering our teams the opportunity to work on science that can make a real difference in people’s lives.   For more information, visit AQEMIA.com, our WTTJ Page, and our LinkedIn.   

About our Team

AQEMIA brings together a diverse, multidisciplinary team of 80+ professionals based in Paris and London. Our scientists and engineers, including chemists, physicists, machine learning experts, and software engineers, work side by side to push the boundaries of early-stage drug discovery.   This close collaboration across disciplines is central to our approach, enabling us to tackle complex scientific challenges from first principles and translate cutting-edge ideas into novel therapeutic candidates. At AQEMIA, team members are encouraged to contribute their expertise, learn from one another, and play an active role in shaping the future of drug invention.  

About our Engineering Department

The Engineering team (~12 people) builds and scales the technical foundations that power Aqemia’s drug discovery engine.   Bringing together expertise across software engineering, cloud infrastructure, data engineering, site reliability engineering (SRE), and scientific computing, the team designs and operates robust, secure, and high-performance platforms that enable Aqemia’s scientific and AI teams to experiment, train, deploy, and run models at scale.   Their work spans data infrastructure, scientific compute systems, cloud operations, orchestration, observability, CI/CD, developer tooling, and platform scalability. By transforming cutting-edge research into reliable and scalable systems, the team accelerates the discovery of new medicines while ensuring operational excellence and an outstanding developer experience.
As Engineering Manager of the Compute team, you will lead a team of 5 engineers responsible for building and evolving the compute platform that powers AQEMIA's scientific simulations, machine learning workloads, and large-scale experimentation. You will combine strong engineering leadership with technical credibility to grow a high-performing team while delivering reliable and scalable platform capabilities.

Responsibilities

Lead and grow the Compute Engineering team

• Lead, coach and develop a team of Software Engineers through regular feedback, career development and mentoring.

• Foster a collaborative, inclusive and high-performing engineering culture built on ownership, trust and continuous improvement.

• Recruit, onboard and retain exceptional engineering talent.

• Help engineers grow both technically and professionally while creating clear development paths.

Deliver Compute roadmap

• Partner with Product, Staff Engineers and Engineering Leadership to define priorities and execute the Compute roadmap.

• Drive predictable delivery by supporting scientific computing, AI workloads and internal developer platforms.

• Balance new capabilities, operational excellence and technical debt reduction.

• Identify and proactively manage delivery risks, dependencies and execution challenges.

Ensure operational excellence

• Drive high engineering standards across architecture, testing, observability, reliability and maintainability.

• Improve the scalability, resilience and performance of production systems supporting research and platform teams.

• Promote modern engineering practices including automation, CI/CD, Infrastructure as Code and AI-assisted software development.

• Continuously improve engineering processes, team effectiveness and operational maturity.

Partner across Engineering and Science

• Collaborate closely with Platform, Data, AI and Scientific teams to translate research needs into scalable engineering solutions.

• Facilitate communication between technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Ensure engineering execution remains aligned with AQEMIA's scientific objectives and business priorities.

• Support cross-functional planning, architecture discussions and technical decision-making.

Contribute to Engineering leadership

• Partner with Engineering Leadership on organizational planning, hiring strategy and team evolution.

• Help define engineering standards, operating principles and best practices across the organization.

• Contribute to long-term platform strategy and engineering scalability.

• Foster knowledge sharing, technical excellence and continuous learning across teams.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in Software Engineering, including experience building production systems at scale.

• Previous experience leading engineering teams as an Engineering Manager or Tech Lead with people management responsibilities.

• Strong experience delivering distributed systems, cloud-native applications or compute-intensive platforms.

• Solid software engineering background with hands-on experience in Python and modern backend development.

• Experience working with AWS, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL, Snowflake and modern cloud infrastructure.

• Strong understanding of software architecture, scalability, observability and operational excellence.

• Experience leading roadmap execution and coordinating cross-functional engineering initiatives.

• Excellent communication skills with the ability to influence across engineering, scientific and business stakeholders.

• Strong coaching mindset with a passion for developing engineers and building high-performing teams.

• Pragmatic approach to balancing delivery, technical excellence and organizational priorities.

Nice-to-have

• Experience leading Platform Engineering, Infrastructure, Compute or SRE teams.

• Exposure to scientific computing, machine learning infrastructure or AI platforms.

• Familiarity with large-scale compute environments, GPU infrastructure or distributed training systems.

• Experience with workflow orchestration systems and developer platforms.

• Experience implementing AI-assisted engineering workflows and spec-driven development practices.

• Track record of scaling engineering organizations in fast-growing technology companies.

• Interest in computational chemistry, life sciences or scientific research environments.

Our Recruitment Process

1. Talent Acquisition Interview (30 min) 

2. Role Alignment & Leadership Interview (45 min) 

3. Technical Assessment (60 min) 

4. Culture Fit Interview with Emmanuelle, Co-founder & COO (60 min) 

5. Final interview with Maximilien, Co-founder and CEO (60 min) + Coffee with the Compute team (30 min)

Why Join Us? 

At AQEMIA, we work for a mission: joining us means having your own impact on changing the way drugs are discovered, and helping to shape the direction of our fast-growing company and team. Expanding Drug Discovery Pipeline : Focused on critical therapeutic areas like Oncology, CNS, Immuno-inflammation... with in vivo proof of concept/patent stage programs. Collaborations with top Pharma, including a $140M Sanofi deal. World-Class Interdisciplinary Team : work alongside exceptional talent at the intersection of technology and life sciences. Our teams combine deep expertise in AI, physics-based modeling, biology, and medicinal chemistry to push the boundaries of innovation. DeepTech Recognition: AQEMIA is proud to be part of the French Tech 40 and France 2030, highlighting our role as a key player in Europe’s DeepTech ecosystem. Prime Location with Flexibility : Our offices are located in the heart of Paris and London (King’s Cross), with flexible work arrangements including up to two remote days per week. Strong Financial Backing : $100M raised from leading European and International investors