Director of Engineering - Core Application

We help chemists change the world by building technology that understands how they work. As chemists ourselves, we know what it's like when software doesn't work the way you do, stuck with systems built by people who never spent a day at the bench. That's why we created Albert OS, the first chemistry-native AI operating system for materials science, designed to remove every obstacle between curiosity and discovery. Today we are taking that further. We are building the system where chemists and AI reason about science together, and where we enable every chemical company to build its own frontier intelligence on top of its own research.

We are looking for somebody who has built products around AI, where the AI rooted into the foundational capabilities, ontology, and data model. The Director of Engineering, Core Product will expand and lead the team behind the heart of Albert OS. This role owns the engineering that turns what happens in the lab into a structured, living representation of scientific knowledge, and the product surfaces where chemists and AI work on it together.

About the role

Albert's core product today supports all the work scientists do and captures what happens in the lab. You will lead the engineering efforts to move it to a three-layer model: what was executed, the context and plans behind it, and the scientific reasoning that drives it. That model is a domain-native context graph for scientific reasoning and materials knowledge, and it is what lets AI understand and extend the science rather than sit beside it. You will work alongside a strong AI organization already building Albert's agentic harness, molecular modeling, and inverse design systems. This role is the counterpart to that work: you own the core product that those capabilities live in, and you make sure the product and the intelligence compound and seamlessly operate together to support chemists’ work. You will own the full application layer of Albert OS, front end through backend, including the core ontology, and lead a tight, high-performing team of 8 to 10 engineers who work agentically as a matter of course. In 12 months, success looks like the core product migrated to the three-layer model, with agentic experiences in production across the primary workflows rather than confined to a chat entry point.

What you'll do

• Develop product surfaces from first principles for a product where AI is present everywhere, built on the agent capabilities the Agentic AI team provides: dynamically generated interfaces alongside designed experiences with deeply embedded AI
• Own the engineering execution of Albert's ontology, partnering with:
• • The AI Knowledge Architect on what the representation needs to be
  • The VP of Product on what to build first
  • The Director of Agentic AI on what the agents need from it
  • The Head of Infrastructure & Security on what is required to securely scale for the largest enterprise customers.
• Build and lead the Core Product engineering team, hiring senior engineers and developing tech leads as the team grows
• Set and hold the bar for how Albert builds software: agentic development practices, quality standards, and a velocity that a team of this size should not be capable of
• Own the APIs, backends, and front end of the core product, working with the platform and infrastructure teams to shape what they need to provide
• Stay hands-on, prototyping and shipping alongside the team while scaling your leadership outward

You may be a fit if

• You have led engineering teams for 8 or more years and have built at least one product where removing the AI would mean the product no longer works.
• You have worked alongside teams building serious AI and know how to build the product that makes it usable
• You have shipped and scaled complex full-stack systems and know what it takes to rebuild a production product without stopping it
• You understand scientific or laboratory workflows well enough to reason about how chemists actually work, and you want to build for them
• You have strong opinions about data models and know that the representation shapes everything built on top of it
• You use agentic development tools daily, hold a high bar for the quality of what they produce, and can teach a team to do the same
• You hire and inspire high performers while staying technically current. Fluency in AI-assisted development is non-negotiable at this level, not because you'll be shipping features, but because you can't lead what you don't understand.

If you are passionate about changing the world one molecule at a time and thrive in a fast-paced, mission-driven environment, we want to hear from you.

Why Albert?

We havea huge impact. Albert is a growing team with a global reach.We’rebuilding toward a future where discovery feels like exploration, not administration. Where chemists can pursue their most ambitious ideas without friction.

We love our global team. Albert’s HQ is in the California Bay Area, but we have multiple offices and employees around the globe: India,Germanyand Japan. In fact, over 50% of our employees work outside of California. An international hybrid culture is in our DNA.

We care about you. Albert works hard to create a positive environment for our employees, and we think your life outside of work is important too. We work hardand weplay hard.

We value diversity. Growing andmaintainingour inclusive and diverse team matters to us. We are committed to being a company where our employees feel comfortable bringing their authenticselvesto work and have the ability to be successful — every day.

We’realways looking for humble, sharp, and creative folks to join the Albert team. If you think you might bea fit, please apply.