Senior Research Associate or Scientist 1

Responsibilities

• Design and execute molecular biology and microbial engineering experiments for high-throughput, reproducible measurements.
• Develop, troubleshoot, and optimize biological assays and workflows to increase throughput, reduce variability, and generate model-training data.
• Own experimental projects from design through execution, analysis, interpretation, and documentation.
• Analyze experimental and computational datasets, identify trends, troubleshoot results, and guide follow-up experiments.
• Establish laboratory protocols, workflows, documentation, and quality-control systems.
• Maintain laboratory equipment, reagents, and workflows; contribute to a safe, organized research environment.
• Contribute methods, datasets, and physical artifacts to open science efforts.

Requirements

• Bachelor's or master's degree in molecular biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, or a related field; PhD holders are welcome.
• At least 3 years of industry experience and significant hands-on research experience.
• Hands-on experience engineering yeast or other microbes, including strain construction, genetic engineering, and strain characterization.
• Strong experience with primer design, Golden Gate cloning, DNA assembly, plasmid construction, and library generation.
• Ability to independently execute and troubleshoot experiments with rigorous experimental design, controls, quantitative measurement, reproducibility, and documentation.
• Ability to take loosely defined experimental objectives through design, execution, analysis, and iteration.
• Resourcefulness, persistence, and comfort diagnosing failed experiments.
• Ability to build new experimental capabilities and collaborate with experimental biologists and computational or AI researchers.
• Comfort operating with ambiguity and moving quickly in an entrepreneurial environment.

Nice-to-haves

• Familiarity with protein modeling, sequence models, structural biology, or adjacent biological research areas.
• Experience building and scaling training infrastructure on large GPU clusters.
• Team management and technical leadership experience.

Compensation and Benefits

• Base salary: $90,000–$120,000 during the residency.
• Potential for a founding research role in a future spinout, contingent on project success and mutual fit.
• Full benefits package, including health insurance, company-sponsored retirement plan, vision, dental, and daily lunch.