AI Staff Software Engineer at Natera

About the Role Natera is standing up a new AI-native engineering team within our CMP (Case Management Platform) organization, focused on transforming how patient samples move from order to result. This team operates with a different model than traditional engineering groups: small, senior, AI-centric, product-focused, and built to move fast. As a Staff Software Engineer, you will be one of the founding technical leaders of this team. Your mission is to accelerate accessioning automation; the process by which requisition forms, samples, and kits are transformed into lab instructions; by applying modern AI and intelligent document processing (IDP) to eliminate manual transcription and unlock a multi-million-dollar annual savings opportunity. You'll be building AI-powered services that integrate with multiple mature systems. You'll own deliverables end-to-end. What You'll Do • Lead the technical design and delivery of AI-native accessioning automation services across paper and electronic requisition forms. • Build fast, ship independently. Operate in small, high-autonomy pods. Drive deliverables from prototype to production without waiting for consensus. • Apply AI pragmatically. Use LLMs, vision models, OCR, and IDP frameworks to solve real accessioning problems. • Own the product outcome, not just the code. Partner directly with Accessioning Operations, Product, and Engineering teams to understand workflows and measure impact in throughput and cost savings. • Integrate across systems, build into existing mature commerce and fulfillment systems • Set the bar for engineering practice on a new team: AI-assisted development, strong test automation, a high leverage ratio enabled by modern tooling, CI/CD, and observability. • Be curious. Evaluate new AI tools, models, and vendor solutions. Build vs. buy vs. integrate decisions are yours to drive. • Mentor and multiply. Raise the technical quality of peers through design reviews, pairing, and evangelizing best practices. What We're Looking For This is an AI-centric, product-focused, move-fast role. You thrive when given a problem and trusted to solve it. You're equally comfortable hands-on coding, debugging, designing architecture, and interacting with stakeholders.. Required Qualifications • BS in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience. • 10+ years of software engineering experience building production systems that handle real business processes or data workflows. • Demonstrated ability to ship AI-powered features in production • Experience with modern AI-assisted development tooling (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot) as part of daily workflow. • Strong backend engineering fundamentals: REST/gRPC APIs, microservices, relational databases, event-driven architectures. • Proficiency in at least one modern backend stack (Python preferred given the AI ecosystem; Java, Go, or TypeScript also acceptable). • Experience integrating third-party AI/IDP platforms • A track record of working fast and independently • Product mindset: you measure success by business outcome, not lines of code. • Excellent written and verbal communication; you can explain trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders. • Commitment to building inclusive, high-performing teams. Nice to Have • Experience with healthcare, clinical lab, or diagnostics workflows (HIPAA, regulated environments). • Prior work on document data extraction, forms automation, or accessioning/intake systems. • Familiarity with LIMS platforms (LabVantage or others) — for integration context only, not configuration. • Front-end experience (React) for building internal tools and operator UIs. • Experience evaluating and fine-tuning vision or document-understanding models. • MLOps experience: model evaluation, monitoring, drift detection, prompt/version management. Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities • Modern AI/ML application patterns — prompt engineering, evals, retrieval, structured output, vision + OCR pipelines. • Backend engineering, REST APIs, relational databases, cloud services (AWS/GCP/Azure). • CI/CD, observability, and test automation as defaults, not afterthoughts. • Quality mindset with awareness of regulated environments (CLIA, HIPAA, GxP). • Strong bias for action. Curiosity is non-negotiable. #LI-DNI The pay range is listed and actual compensation packages are based on a wide array of factors unique to each candidate, including but not limited to skill set, years & depth of experience, certifications and specific office location. This may differ in other locations due to cost of labor considerations.Remote USA$145,600—$182,000 USDOUR OPPORTUNITY Natera™ is a global leader in cell-free DNA (cfDNA) testing, dedicated to oncology, women’s health, and organ health. Our aim is to make personalized genetic testing and diagnostics part of the standard of care to protect health and enable earlier and more targeted interventions that lead to longer, healthier lives. The Natera team consists of highly dedicated statisticians, geneticists, doctors, laboratory scientists, business professionals, software engineers and many other professionals from world-class institutions, who care deeply for our work and each other. When you join Natera, you’ll work hard and grow quickly. Working alongside the elite of the industry, you’ll be stretched and challenged, and take pride in being part of a company that is changing the landscape of genetic disease management. WHAT WE OFFER Competitive Benefits - Employee benefits include comprehensive medical, dental, vision, life and disability plans for eligible employees and their dependents. Additionally, Natera employees and their immediate families receive free testing in addition to fertility care benefits. Other benefits include pregnancy and baby bonding leave, 401k benefits, commuter benefits and much more. We also offer a generous employee referral program! For more information, visit www.natera.com. Natera is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. We are committed to ensuring a diverse and inclusive workplace environment, and welcome people of different backgrounds, experiences, abilities and perspectives. Inclusive collaboration benefits our employees, our community and our patients, and is critical to our mission of changing the management of disease worldwide. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply, and will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, age, veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with applicable laws. If you are based in California, we encourage you to read this important information for California residents. Link: [Upgrade to PRO to see link] Please be advised that Natera will reach out to candidates with a @natera.com email domain ONLY. Email communications from all other domain names are not from Natera or its employees and are fraudulent. Natera does not request interviews via text messages and does not ask for personal information until a candidate has engaged with the company and has spoken to a recruiter and the hiring team. Natera takes cyber crimes seriously, and will collaborate with law enforcement authorities to prosecute any related cyber crimes. For more information: - BBB announcement on job scams - FBI Cyber Crime resource page