Founding Machine Learning Scientist

Tabula Bio • San Francisco, CA

1d

About The Position

Tabula is an AI-first therapeutics company focused on developing bacteriophage-based therapies for hard-to-treat infections. We are building the computational models and experimental systems necessary to design more effective therapies. The company believes that drug and therapy discovery will become increasingly computational, and Tabula is structured around this principle from its inception. This role is a research-oriented Machine Learning position focused on developing models, designing experiments, and iterating in close collaboration with the wet lab. The goal is to create a feedback loop where data generation improves models, ultimately leading to the design of living therapies that can save lives. This is a founding role, offering the opportunity to help define the company's research direction, model quality standards, and the integration of computational and biological efforts.

Requirements

• Strong background in modern machine learning and deep learning
• Fluency in Python and PyTorch, plus comfort with the broader modern ML stack
• Ability to reason clearly about model architectures, training, evaluation, and tradeoffs
• Good research judgment about which ideas are worth testing and how to evaluate them
• Comfort working in an early-stage environment where the problems are hard and the path is still being defined
• Ability to work closely with domain experts outside ML
• Strong interest in applying machine learning to a problem in the physical world, not just at the software layer
• Substantial model development work, not just building products on top of model APIs
• Enjoy designing experiments and learning from ambiguous results
• Excited by the idea of using AI for something more concrete than the usual software treadmill
• Desire for work to be tied to outcomes in the real world
• Interest in helping build a company where machine learning is central, not decorative

Nice To Haves

• Prior biology experience is not required, as the company has biology expertise.

Responsibilities

• Design and run model experiments against difficult biological data
• Help define the research roadmap for how Tabula’s models should improve over time
• Work closely with the lab to shape what data gets generated and why
• Build better practices around experimentation, evaluation, and reproducibility
• Contribute to technical decisions around model design, training, and research direction
• Help a small team build an AI company whose output is not content or software alone, but real therapies for real patients

Benefits

• The opportunity to shape how the work is done and where it goes
• A shorter path from model building to real human impact compared to other areas of biology
• The chance to build an AI-first therapeutics company from the beginning

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Entry Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed