Associate Director, Computational Chemistry

Revolution Medicines•Redwood City, CA

7d•Onsite

About The Position

Revolution Medicines is seeking an accomplished and creative Associate Director to join its Computational Chemistry team. Reporting to the Head of Computational Chemistry, this role leads computational support for drug discovery programs, using structure-based drug design to guide compound design and optimization from hit finding through lead optimization. The Associate Director also leads Computational Chemistry’s contribution to TQ by setting computational priorities, coordinating work across TQ efforts, and guiding scientific decisions. As a computational chemistry lead on multidisciplinary discovery teams, the Associate Director shapes project direction and compound design, integrates scientific and experimental data to guide prioritization of Ro5 and bRo5 molecules, and partners across functions to address discovery challenges. The role sets scientific priorities and work plans, coordinates resources, and is accountable for the quality, timeliness, and scientific impact of assigned work. It also advances hit-finding strategies and computational methods, collaborates on AI/ML approaches, establishes standards for reproducibility and model evaluation, and may manage and develop junior scientists. The position is full-time and based onsite at the company’s Redwood City, California headquarters for the salary range stated in the posting. The role is part of a company focused on discovering, developing, and delivering medicines for patients with RAS-addicted cancers.

Requirements

Ph.D. in computational chemistry or a related field.
10+ years of experience post-Ph.D.
Substantial computational chemistry experience in the biotechnology or pharmaceutical industry, with demonstrated scientific leadership across discovery programs and a track record of influencing program strategy, advancing compounds, or enabling key discovery decisions.
Expert knowledge of computational chemistry methods for protein-ligand analysis and molecular design, including docking, virtual screening, pharmacophore modeling, molecular dynamics, and free energy or quantum mechanical calculations.
Experience developing, validating, and applying AI/ML or data science approaches to drug discovery, with sound judgment in model evaluation, uncertainty, applicability, and experimental validation.
Strong scientific programming skills in Python or related languages, and experience with computational chemistry, cheminformatics, and machine learning software.
Demonstrated ability to set scientific priorities, develop work plans, coordinate resources, and lead scientists or cross-functional programs.
Ability to influence senior stakeholders and communicate complex findings and recommendations clearly.
Collaborative leadership style, a record of mentoring scientists, and ability to balance exploratory research with discovery timelines and deliverables.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Ro5 and bRo5 modalities, including macrocycles, molecular glues, tri-complex inhibitors, covalent ligands, or other challenging therapeutic modalities.
Experience working in HPC or cloud environments and developing scalable computational workflows.
A record of scientific innovation reflected in patents, publications, presentations, or adoption of methods that improve discovery outcomes.
Experience managing direct reports, external scientific collaborations, or budgets.

Responsibilities

Serve as a computational chemistry lead on multidisciplinary discovery teams, shaping project direction and compound design from hit finding through lead optimization.
Integrate SAR, structural, biophysical, biochemical, and ADME/PK data to guide prioritization of Ro5 and bRo5 molecules.
Lead Computational Chemistry’s contribution to TQ by translating discovery strategy into computational objectives, work plans, and milestones.
Coordinate execution across TQ efforts and be accountable for the quality, timeliness, and scientific impact of the work.
Partner with medicinal chemistry, structural biology, biology, and screening leaders to define scientific questions, resolve discovery challenges, and recommend priorities.
Communicate evidence, uncertainties, and trade-offs to project teams and senior leadership.
Establish hit-finding strategies for novel protein and protein-protein interaction targets, including structure-based and ligand-based virtual screening and design of diverse chemical libraries.
Guide evaluation, development, and application of computational methods, including molecular dynamics, enhanced sampling, and free energy calculations.
Remain hands-on in solving challenging modeling and molecular design problems.
Collaborate with Advanced Analytics to develop, validate, and apply AI/ML methods for computational chemistry and drug discovery.
Set computational priorities across assigned discovery programs and TQ responsibilities in alignment with the Head of Computational Chemistry and project leads.
Identify staffing, compute, software, and external collaboration needs; provide budget and resource recommendations; and track delivery against agreed plans.
Provide scientific leadership and lead cross-functional initiatives.
Establish standards for reproducibility, model evaluation, and knowledge sharing, and support adoption of effective methods across discovery teams.
Have the opportunity to manage and develop junior scientists, supporting their scientific development and contributions to discovery projects.