Research Scientist, Applied Research

Chai Discovery • San Francisco, CA

1d

About The Position

Chai Discovery is hiring research scientists to improve the real-world performance of its foundation models for molecular design and drug discovery. The role involves planning targeted data-generation campaigns, designing evaluations that accurately measure model performance, and developing post-training approaches that make models useful for real drug-discovery problems. The team prioritizes simple, robust methods over intricate solutions tailored to narrow problems, and values researchers who can formalize complex biological problems using methods from other fields.

The role works closely with pre-training researchers, research engineers, and the science team. Work is expected to ship quickly, with results reaching therapeutic programs across industry.

Requirements

• Technical depth paired with an interest in underlying biology; a biological background is not required.
• Strong quantitative background in computer science, mathematics, or physics, particularly in probability, statistics, and machine learning.
• Deep software engineering expertise, including experience working in large codebases.

Nice To Haves

• Published research in machine learning for protein, antibody, or small-molecule modeling.
• Fluency in the technical details of protein language, structure prediction, and design models, such as AlphaFold, RFDiffusion, ProteinMPNN, and ESM.

Responsibilities

• Plan targeted data-generation campaigns.
• Design evaluations that accurately measure model performance.
• Formulate post-training recipes to make foundation models useful for real drug-discovery problems.
• Collaborate closely with pre-training researchers, research engineers, and the science team.

Benefits

• Opportunity to work at the forefront of AI research and frontier biology with world-class colleagues on a mission that matters.
• A culture that protects and promotes high velocity and ownership.
• Compensation described as appropriate for the team.

What This Job Offers

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