Quality Engineer

About Apheris

At Apheris, we are building the future of how AI is applied in pharmaceutical R&D.
Our federated computing technology enables global pharma companies to collaborate securely on large AI models that accelerate drug discovery, without ever sharing their proprietary data. By powering multi-partner data networks across small molecules, antibodies, and protein folding, Apheris is redefining how science and AI intersect.

We currently host two flagship networks: the AI Structural Biology (AISB) Network, focused on protein co-folding and binding affinity prediction, and the ADMET Network, focused on small-molecule property prediction. In addition, we have just launched ApherisFold, an enterprise co-folding application that enables pharma teams to deploy cutting-edge models such as OpenFold3 and Boltz-2 directly within their own environments. 

About the role

As a Quality Engineer at Apheris, you will play a key role in ensuring the reliability, security, and performance of our products that power AI in life sciences. Our portfolio includes the Apheris Gateway for building and joining federated data networks, as well as the Apheris Hub that enables local runs of AI-based drug discovery workflows.

You will work closely with software engineers and data scientists to design and execute testing strategies for complex, distributed, and GPU-intensive systems - from privacy-preserving federated computations running across multiple organizations to scientist-facing UIs / APIs.

You will be responsible for identifying and implementing the best ways to test our products, covering both functional and non-functional requirements (performance, scalability, reliability, security, and usability) to meet the expectations of our high-profile pharma and life sciences customers.

At Apheris, Quality Engineers don't just "write tests". We expect you to:

• Design, implement, and maintain automated test suites spanning different test levels.
• Define and enforce quality gates in our CI/CD pipelines to keep feedback loops short and ensure every change meets our quality bar before it reaches customers.
• Champion quality-by-design by collaborating with teams on testability, observability, and robust engineering practices from design through release.
• Partner with product, platform, and infrastructure teams to clarify requirements, identify risk early and shape test strategies for new features.

By helping teams enforce strong quality engineering practices across the entire Software Development Lifecycle, you will be a key contributor to the success of our products and have a direct impact on how organizations build better AI models and data products while securely collaborating on sensitive life sciences data.

What you will do

• Be a champion regarding quality engineering practices.
• Be involved in the development of complex features from the beginning by designing Test Strategies and conducting testing sessions to find bugs on early stages.
• Write automated test cases at different test levels and coach other developers on that matter.
• Contribute to the development of testing frameworks that support the testing process.
• Write pipelines as code that will implement automatic quality gates to enforce best practices on the SDLC.
• Help the teams improving their feedback loops by enforcing CI/CD towards a DevOps mindset.

What we expect from you

• 2+ years of relevant professional experience with a Bachelor's/Master's degree in Computer Science or 4+ years of relevant professional experience with a degree on a related field (e.g., Physics, Mathematics, Engineering).
• Development and/or test automation experience, preferably using Python (other OOP languages are also valued).
• Capable to write scripts to automate tedious day-to-day tasks (using Python, Bash or anything you like to script with).
• Experience with non-functional testing (performance, reliability, fault-tolerance).
• Knowledge in CI/CD and DevOps practices with hands on experience on creating / maintaining Pipelines as Code.
• Knowledge in Containerisation (Docker) and Orchestration (Kubernetes) concepts.
• Proficient with Git and Git Flow concepts.
• Proficient in a UNIX/Linux environment.
• Excellent communicator: you are fluent in English (verbal and written) and communicate in a constructive and proactive manner.
• You are confident to take ownership of a problem, gather ideas to solve it and convey your approach efficiently.
• You have genuine interest in working with cutting-edge technology in a fast-paced environment and a young start-up.
• Passionate about continuous learning, demonstrated agility in quickly adopting and mastering new technologies.

Nice to have

• Prior exposure to life-sciences domains, which is a plus but not required.
• Experience with Testing Frameworks (e.g., Playwright, Pact, REST Assured, Selenium, Cypress - similar tools are valued).
• Experience in Go and / or
• Knowledge with cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP, OpenStack) and on-premise setups (e.g., locally hosted Kubernetes).
• Knowledge in Software Security (e.g., OWASP).
• Knowledge in infrastructure-as-code tools (GitOps, Terraform, Flux).

What we offer you

• Industry-competitive compensation, including early-stage virtual share options
• Remote-first working - work where you work best, whether from home or a co-working space near you.
• Great suite of benefits, including a wellbeing budget, mental health benefits, a work-from-home budget, a co-working stipend and a learning and development budget
• Generous holiday allowance
• Office Days at our Berlin HQ or a different European location (3x a year)
• A fun, diverse team of mission-driven individuals with a drive to see AI and ML used for good
• Plenty of room to grow personally and professionally 

Logistics

Our interview process is split into four phases:

1. Initial Screening: If your application matches our requirements, we invite you to an initial video call with the Director of Quality Engineering to explore the fit. In this 30-45 minutes interview, you will get to know us and the role. The interviewer will be interested in your relevant experiences and skills, as well as answer any question on the company and the role itself that you may have.
2. Take Home Challenge: If there is an alignment between your interests and Apheris you will be invited to complete a take home coding challenge, that you will be able to complete at your own pace, in order to access that yours skills and knowledge are aligned with the role needs.
3. Deep Dive: In this phase, a domain expert from our team will assess your challenge and schedule a session with you so that we could discuss about the implementation decisions that were made.
4. Final Interview: Finally, we invite you for a session with our founders, to talk about our culture and discuss about the company vision and plans for the future.

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