Bioengineer, Lead Scientist

LatchBio•San Francisco, CA

21d•Hybrid

About The Position

LatchBio is hiring a Lead Scientist to measure and improve AI model performance in biology by engineering benchmarks and leading a team delivering work for frontier model labs. The role sits within the benchmarking team and reports directly to the CTO. It works closely with the therapeutics and drug development team, product engineering, and scientific leadership to build and scale benchmark and task production. The Lead Scientist co-designs benchmarks, maps domain knowledge into benchmark taxonomies, designs tasks and graders, and establishes standards for task quality. The role reviews team work for scientific value, writing quality, contract scope, and whether tasks develop transferable skills. It leads and mentors a team of up to seven scientists, supports onboarding and professional development, and helps team members overcome technical or professional blockers. The role also supports production and quality against partner-agreed timelines and volumes, works with engineering to improve compute and platform use and automate task creation, and provides feedback as a core user of platform tools. It leads domain initiatives such as data acquisition and roadmap definition, helps recruit candidates, and communicates strategic initiatives with leadership. This is a hybrid role; daily onsite attendance is not required, and fully remote arrangements are possible for some L2s. It is a full-time role of about 40 hours per week, with nights and weekends not expected. The stated ramp-up to full speed is about three months.

Requirements

Scientific domain knowledge sufficient to map a domain into benchmark taxonomies and assess the scientific value and transferability of tasks.
Ability to design tasks, graders, rubrics, and quality standards.
Ability to lead, mentor, and support a team of scientists.
Ability to review scientific work and ensure quality, clear writing, and alignment with contract scope.
Ability to collaborate with engineering on compute, platform usage, and task-creation tools.
Ability to lead domain initiatives and communicate with leadership.

Responsibilities

Map domain knowledge into a taxonomy of benchmarks, and co-author and release benchmarks for frontier labs.
Design benchmark tasks and graders, and establish task standards and rubric quality for the team.
Ensure production meets partner-agreed volumes and timelines; delivery may include evaluation creation, rubrics, or preference labeling depending on the contract.
Review team work before delivery for scientific value, clear and professional writing, contract scope, and transferable skills; define quality and review standards for different work types.
Lead a team of up to seven scientists, including onboarding, one-on-ones, feedback, and professional development.
Support team members who are blocked and advocate for team needs to leadership.
Work with engineering to optimize compute and platform usage so scientists can focus on scientific work.
Work with engineering to build tools that automate tedious task-creation work and provide feedback on platform tools.
Lead domain initiatives such as data acquisition and roadmap definition.
Help hire and close strong candidates.
Communicate strategic initiatives with leadership to build consensus and execute across the organization.
Co-author gene therapy benchmarks and own specific projects and benchmarks; support customer contact while the MTS owns the customer relationship.