Software Engineer Intern - Culture Biosciences

About Us:

Culture’s mission is to simplify and accelerate bioprocess development to enable our customers to bring their biopharmaceutical products to market faster.

With a focus on upstream cell culture process development, Culture has developed a unique platform that merges products, services and data management that can be applied to mammalian, microbial and viral vector production processes. This platform enables high-throughput process development projects to be rapidly and seamlessly executed directly by our customers in their own facilities, in our service laboratories, or both, all driven by our cloud-connected web application, accessible from anywhere, for designing, managing and analyzing experiments.

At Culture, we combine our passions for biomanufacturing, engineering, and operations to build new solutions that make bioprocess development faster. We value curiosity, communication, collaboration, a customer focused mindset and a drive for results.

About the Role

We are looking for a Software Engineer Intern to join our small but passionate team of 10 developers working on cloud-based bioreactor control and monitoring platform. As an intern, you will play a critical role in developing and executing end-to-end integration tests to ensure the reliability and robustness of our systems.

Your primary focus will be on automated testing of our published API endpoints, backend APIs, and frontend components. Most tests will be written in Python, with frontend tests using Cypress. You will also contribute to manual testing efforts, ensuring high-quality releases for our customers.

Other opportunities include building up emulators, adding features to our embedded system (STM, Raspberry PI), and writing and integrating drivers for 3rd party devices.

This internship provides an excellent opportunity to work with cloud-based software that integrates with hardware systems, gaining hands-on experience in testing scalable and reliable SaaS platforms in the biotech industry.

What You’ll Do

• Design, develop, and execute automated end-to-end integration tests for Stratyx.
• Test backend APIs, published API endpoints, and frontend components.
• Write test scripts primarily in Python, with frontend tests using Cypress.
• Perform manual testing to validate complex system behaviors.
• Work with developers to identify, troubleshoot, and resolve issues.
• Gain exposure to cloud environments (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and how software interacts with hardware systems.
• Add features to embedded systems with direct hardware control
• Develop drivers for 3rd party devices.
• Learn about fermentation, cell culture, and biotechnology.

Basic Qualifications

• You are between your junior and senior years in a university or college or you are a masters student between years
• Understanding of computer science fundamentals (data structures, algorithms, object-oriented programming).
• Experience programming in Python or another major language.
• Interest in software systems that integrate with hardware.
• Problem-solving and debugging skills.
• Ability to work in a small, collaborative team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to automated testing frameworks (e.g., PyTest, Cypress) is a plus but not essential.
• Familiarity with cloud platforms (AWS) is helpful but not required.
• Interest in REST APIs, API testing and manual testing of HW/SW systems.
• Experience with Raspberry PI controlled devices.
• Experience with STM based designs
• Note: Technical guidance will be provided, and a tech lead will offer support and supervision to help you succeed in this role.

Why Join Us?

• Hands-on experience in testing a cloud-based biotech platform.
• Work closely with a small, passionate team of experienced developers.
• Gain exposure to modern software testing practices and cloud technologies.

Contribute to software that has a direct impact on biotech and research innovation.

Location & Schedule:

• This is an onsite position. We’re looking for someone based in the San Francisco Bay Area who is able to work in person at our office in South San Francisco.
• The duration of this internship is 3 months.
• Relocation/housing assistance will NOT be provided.

Base Salary Range

• This is a paid internship and this role is $35 - $40 an hour. The hourly rate for this position is determined based on a variety of job-related factors that may include location, relevant experience, education, or particular skills and expertise.