Infrastructure Engineer

About Cellular Intelligence

Cellular Intelligence is building a universal foundation model for cell signaling to understand, predict, and ultimately control how cells behave, transforming biology from trial and error into an engineering discipline. A clinical-stage AI company, Cellular Intelligence holds the global rights to STEM-PD, an investigational Phase 2-ready cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease with FDA Fast Track designation, acquired from Novo Nordisk. The company’s founding team includes repeat AI entrepreneur Micha Breakstone, Ph.D. (Chorus.ai, acquired for $575M), and five professors from Harvard Medical School, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Washington, collectively holding five National Academy memberships. Based in Boston, Cellular Intelligence has raised over $70M from Khosla Ventures, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, Novo Nordisk, AMD Ventures, and others.

Cellular Intelligence’s Core Values

• We show up - fully accountable, all-in, doing whatever it takes.

• We act with urgency - swift, decisive, proactive.

• We support one another - collaborative, helpful, empathetic.

Location: Boston, MA, onsite, full-time

Reports to: Director of Bioinformatics

About the role:

We are looking for an Infrastructure Engineer to own the cloud infrastructure, research compute and engineering tools behind CI’s R&D. Your primary focus will be owning our AWS environment, Slurm cluster, shared Linux hosts and internal web applications, and continuously improving their reliability, security and ease of use.

This is a hands-on role spanning infrastructure engineering and operational security. You will make infrastructure decisions, build automation, troubleshoot problems with researchers and improve how we deploy and operate services. You will drive security improvements proactively, partnering with our CISO to review risks and validate controls.

CI is an AI-first company. We expect you to use automation and LLM tools to reduce repetitive work and improve engineering productivity, with appropriate testing, access controls and human review.

Responsibilities:

Cloud infrastructure and research compute

• Operate and improve our AWS environment, including networking, IAM, storage, infrastructure as code, monitoring, backups and cost management.

• Configure, maintain and improve the Slurm cluster and shared Linux hosts used for research and model training.

• Define, implement and operate storage policies covering data placement, access, retention, archival and deletion across AWS and shared research storage, in partnership with researchers and the CISO.

• Help researchers resolve access, SSH, storage and job execution problems, and automate recurring fixes.

• Test recovery procedures and improve reliability based on operational experience.

Internal web applications and engineering tools

• Keep internal web applications reliable through monitoring, safe deployments, backups and incident response.

• Own CI/CD infrastructure, GitHub repository controls and the deployment and operation of internal web applications.

• Write and maintain Python tools to automate infrastructure tasks and help researchers use shared compute systems.

• Automate recurring infrastructure and security work, including resource provisioning, deployments, access management, cost reporting and audit evidence collection.

• Write clear runbooks and system documentation so others can operate services and resolve common problems.

Security

• Own technical security controls across AWS, research compute, internal web applications and source code, reviewing plans and risks with the CISO.

• Manage least-privilege access, short-lived credentials, MFA and secrets management.

• Run vulnerability scanning across cloud resources, containers, code and dependencies; prioritize findings and coordinate remediation with the engineers responsible.

• Maintain actionable security logging and alerts, investigate suspicious activity and lead technical incident response with the CISO and relevant system owners.

• Build security checks and safe defaults into CI/CD and infrastructure as code.

• Implement encryption, retention and data handling controls defined with the CISO and relevant data owners.

• Assess the technical security of new tools, vendors and AI agents, including their access to company systems and data.

• Coordinate external penetration tests with the CISO and drive remediation of infrastructure findings.

Compliance and collaboration

• Operate the technical controls supporting our GDPR obligations and SOC 2 program, and maintain evidence that those controls are working.

• Partner with the CISO and IT on access reviews, audit evidence and security questionnaires.

• Surface risks, operational bottlenecks and resource needs clearly, and help prioritize improvements.
  

Qualifications:

3+ years of experience independently operating production cloud infrastructure, preferably on AWS, with hands-on responsibility for reliability and security.

• Practical knowledge of IAM, EC2, S3 and VPC networking.

• Experience managing infrastructure as code using Terraform, CloudFormation, CDK or similar tools, with changes shipped through code review.

• Hands-on experience with access controls, secrets management, security logging, vulnerability remediation and incident response.

• Strong Linux troubleshooting skills, including permissions, SSH, services, storage and diagnosis from logs.

• Ability to build and maintain Python tools and integrations used by others.

• Experience operating CI/CD pipelines and managing repository permissions and controls.

• A record of reducing operational work through automation, and willingness to use AI tools with sound judgment.

• Clear written communication and the ability to support scientists and other colleagues who are not infrastructure specialists.
  

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with Slurm or other batch compute systems, particularly for GPU training workloads.

• Experience building reliable LLM automation, including agent workflows, reusable skills or MCP servers.

• Experience securing AI tools or agents that can access company systems and data.

• Experience implementing technical controls and collecting evidence for SOC 2, GDPR, ISO 27001 or comparable programs.

• Experience managing substantial cloud compute and storage costs.

• Experience working in a startup or interdisciplinary research environment.
  

Cellular Intelligence is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive workplace. We welcome and encourage applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, or age. We embrace differences and believe that a diverse workforce enhances our creativity, innovation, and overall success.