AI Engineer - San Francisco - PicnicHealth

Description

PicnicHealth is simplifying clinical research with AI, making it faster and cheaper to get new treatments to patients. We're bringing a patient-centered, AI-first approach to a $100b market otherwise dominated by old-school, services-driven incumbents. We're creating a streamlined operating system for clinical research, built on top of our AI for medical record data in trials and a personal health assistant that keeps patients engaged.

The Opportunity

Clinical research is ripe for reinvention. Running a study today involves countless labor-intensive workflows—work that's slow, expensive, and often frustrating for everyone involved. We believe AI can change that.

Our AI team builds real systems with critical business impact. We process millions of pages of medical records, turning messy real-world data into structured patient timelines. We automate complex study workflows—from protocol setup to ongoing operations. The goal isn't incremental efficiency—it's drastically reducing the human labor required to run a study.

This is a high-leverage role. You'll work closely with product managers and our study delivery team to identify high-impact opportunities—and own the AI solutions that address them. If you're excited about applying the latest AI capabilities to problems that genuinely matter, this is the place to do it.

As an AI Engineer you will:

• Build AI agents that automate labor-intensive clinical study workflows—like drafting clinical trial documentation
• Extend and improve our agent framework (built on pydantic-ai) and the infrastructure that supports it
• Build data pipelines that give our agents access to the research and context they need
• Collaborate directly with study project managers, clinicians, and other stakeholders to understand problems and deliver solutions
• Do whatever it takes to ship—including scrappy UI work when that's what's blocking progress

What you'll birng:

• 5+ years of experience writing production code in Python
• Deep experience with LLMs—not just API calls, but defining tools, understanding failure modes, and developing intuition for how to get reliable results
• Experience building agents that actually work in production
• Comfort navigating complex dev environments (Docker, Kubernetes, cloud-based development) well enough to unblock yourself
• Openness to occasional frontend work, especially with AI coding tools in your toolbelt
• Ability to explain technical tradeoffs to PMs and clinicians and incorporate their feedback quickly
• Self‑direction and drive to move projects forward without detailed specs

We expect all team members to be motivated to be amazing in their roles and, ultimately, to move the PicnicHealth mission forward.

What is clinical research and why will PicnicHealth win?

Clinical research is the industry responsible for conducting studies to evaluate the effectiveness of drugs and treatments. Better trials lead to faster, more cost‑effective drug development, ultimately resulting in more and improved treatments for patients. However, the process remains highly inefficient. Trials are a major bottleneck in drug development, and the promising advancements in biotech cannot translate to real patient impact unless clinical research becomes faster and more efficient.

The industry runs on outdated technology and manual processes. Research sites (hospitals, academic centers, doctors' offices) are overburdened and under‑resourced. Contract research organizations (CROs), the organizations that traditionally run clinical trials for life sciences companies, typically throw hundreds‑of‑thousands of man‑hours wrangling sites and cobbling together vendor software.

PicnicHealth has built technology that uniquely positions us to run faster, cheaper, and more flexible studies while removing burden from sites:

• PicnicAI (trained on 350M+ clinician annotations over 100k+ patient records) is the only system that can effectively access and structure all participant EMR data trials need
• Our AI health assistant (NPS of 76 in 2024) guides participants through study activities and enables most to be done at home
• We're an integrated solution—virtual site, CRO, and software platform—with AI built in from the ground up, initially focusing on non‑interventional research.

Perks & Benefits @PicnicHealth

At PicnicHealth you get to solve real problems with real solutions, great tech, and great people. We look to attract and retain exceptional performers through a mission that matters, a culture that allows team members to do their best work and be their real selves, and through competitive compensation and benefits packages aligned to the market and our Core Values.

We're a remote first company, with teammates spread across the US. We support in‑person gatherings, including co‑working spaces and multi‑day onsites, to build connections and move forward strategic initiatives. Expect to travel 2‑4 times a year. For our team members in the Bay Area, who prefer to work in person we can offer a hybrid set‑up to work from the SF office on a flexible schedule.

Target Base Salary Range: $180K–$220K

The base salary PicnicHealth offers may vary depending upon the ultimate scope and responsibilities of the position and on the candidate's job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. The total package will include equity, in addition to a full range of medical and/or other benefits, depending on the position offered. Pay and benefits are subject to change at any time, consistent with the terms of any applicable compensation or benefit plans.

You also get:

• Comprehensive benefits including above‑market Health, Dental, Vision
• Family friendly environment
• Flexible time off
• 401k plan
• Free PicnicHealth account
• Equipment and internet funds for home office set up
• Wellness Stipend

Equal Opportunity Statement

PicnicHealth is committed to promoting an inclusive work environment free of discrimination and harassment. We value a diverse and balanced team where everyone can belong.