Discovery Portfolio Manager

Physical Superintelligence•Boston, MA

9d•Onsite

About The Position

Physical Superintelligence is an exceptionally well-funded seed-stage startup with roots at Google, Meta, DeepMind, NVIDIA, Citadel, Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, the Perimeter Institute, and the Institute for Advanced Study, building AI systems to discover new physics at scale. Our mission is to discover and commercialize transformative physics breakthroughs at scale with artificial superintelligence, safely, verifiably, and for broad public benefit. Our platform runs discovery campaigns against open problems in physics. Those campaigns produce results, and someone has to decide what happens to them. This role involves owning the portfolio of problems the platform targets, setting the bar for results before they are shared externally, and determining whether each result should be a publication, a filing, a trade secret, or open source. The final decisions on complex cases rest with a standing committee, but the recommendation, reasoning, record, and follow-through are the responsibility of this role. The individual will translate platform outputs into lasting assets, rather than just interesting data. This role is based in Boston and is on-site at our Cambridge hub. We offer competitive compensation including salary, benefits, and meaningful early-stage equity. We evaluate judgment, what you have built, and the leverage you create. This role involves access to controlled unclassified technical data, and some responsibilities are subject to U.S. export control regulations; we will discuss any resulting requirements transparently during the process. We are an equal opportunity employer and value diverse perspectives in building platforms for AI-driven discovery.

Requirements

Real technical depth in physics or an adjacent field, sufficient to read campaign output and judge its reality, novelty, and significance, and to engage with the research team. A PhD, a serious research career, or years of hands-on technical work close to the physics are acceptable.
Technology transfer and IP management background, with experience running the path from result to filing to publication with real stakes. Experience in technology transfer at a national lab, research institution, or university office; in-house IP strategy at a deep tech company; or managing a prosecution docket and counsel.
Portfolio judgment, including experience running a research program with prioritization and kill mechanisms under budget and against a clock. Ability to discuss shutting down interesting projects.
A network of standing relationships with credible people across several physics subfields.
Ability to identify when there is no patent to be had, distinguishing eligible subject matter from laws of nature in apparatus costumes. Experience in such arguments with scientists.
The nerve to hold a line without formal enforcement power, relying on rule sets and credibility.
Clear-eyed understanding of AI-generated science, distinguishing insight from plausible nonsense, and treating verification as critical. Not needing to build the platform but needing to assess its outputs critically.
Familiarity with U.S. export control regulations and their implications for responsibilities.

Nice To Haves

Editorial or program committee experience at a major venue.
Experience with export control compliance and sensitive technology research and development.
Named inventor on issued patents.
Familiarity with commercial domains: compute infrastructure (on the ground and in orbit), energy, and sensing and instrumentation.

Responsibilities

Point the platform at the right problems: map the landscape of open physics problems reachable by the system, decide where to spend campaign time, run cheap broad probes to find fertile ground, concentrate effort where ground is fertile, and kill efforts that are not converting. Constantly make trade-offs between scientific and commercial value.
Decide what happens to results: establish a written rule set to handle recurring patterns in results, routing only novel cases to the committee. Determine if results have eligible subject matter, if they can be reverse-engineered by competitors, if existing contracts dictate their fate, and if infringement can be detected and pursued. Read commercial agreements closely.
Get results validated and published: build a standing bench of outside experts across relevant physics subfields, route provisional results through them under safe infrastructure (NDAs, export screening, conflict screening), and manage the submission, referee, and revision process for strong venues. Publication is key to gaining field recognition.
Build the IP pipeline: establish disclosure intake, triage, and a filing cadence. Direct outside counsel on strategy and priority for drafting and prosecuting patents. Keep the portfolio focused on value capture over ease of publication, maintain boundaries against open-source releases, and ensure the portfolio is understandable for investor technical diligence. Ensure records of natural person contribution to inventions are built into campaign operations.
Manage the public benefit commitment as a live input into decision-making.