Senior Project Manager, Research

Xaira Therapeutics•South San Francisco, CA

5h•$148,000 - $185,000•Onsite

About The Position

We are seeking a Project Manager to support Xaira’s high-priority Agentic AI Initiatives, including X-Cell, X-Design, and related programs. This role is well suited for a candidate with a strong scientific and software background who has experience with cross-functional project management in research settings, where ML/AI system and biologics R&D intersect. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience with ML model training and evaluation, agentic AI systems (tool use, orchestration, human in the loop review), software development, and biologics R&D, with the ability to manage timelines, track deliverables, and partner closely with scientific and technical leads to keep fast-moving programs on track. This position emphasizes scientific and technical depth, coordination across ML, engineering, and scientific teams, and milestone tracking in an environment where playbooks are being defined and evolving rapidly. It is a strong fit for someone with a technical background at the interface of ML, software, and biology who is comfortable managing cross-functional projects and collections of project driving towards program objectives and milestones.

Requirements

Advanced degree (MS, PhD, or equivalent) in life sciences, bioinformatics, computational biology or a related field strongly preferred.
Minimum of 6+ years of industry experience, including hands-on biologics research with demonstrated project or timeline management responsibilities.
Proven track record of managing research and/or technical programs
Working fluency in biologics research and ML research with hands on experience a big plus.
Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills; able to translate complex scientific ideas into clear plans.
Excellent communication, time management collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
Experience with basic project tracking tools (Excel, Smartsheet, MS Project, Asana, Google Suite, etc).
Working familiarity with project and program management principles as defined by the Program Management Institute (PMI) or similar bodies. PMP, CAPM, or PMI-ACP certifications are a plus, but note hands on experience matters more than the credential itself.

Nice To Haves

Comfortable managing projects in a fast-paced, cross-functional environment.
Hands-on experience both with wet-lab and computational research. Experience with data generation for training large machine learning models in biology would be greatly preferred.
Demonstrated ability to lead and influence diverse teams, both functionally and at different levels of seniority.
Passion for science and dedication to improving patient outcomes through innovative biologics development.

Responsibilities

Support day-to-day planning and coordination of platform research programs, ensuring clear communication of next steps, expected deadlines, and needs to stakeholders.
Build and maintain project timelines that capture critical milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
Partner with scientific leads and functional stakeholders to align on scope, priorities, and progress.
Collaborate with scientific teams to define key project milestones, decisional experiments and translate into actionable, resource-information timelines.
Help compile project data, timelines, risks, and trade-offs to support informed decision- making.
Coordinate and facilitate planning and documentation of decisive experiments, and update project plans based on results and next steps.
Facilitate cross-functional collaboration across research to ensure effective communication and documentation of decisions, alignment of priorities and timelines.
Schedule and run cross-functional meetings, ensuring clear agendas, effective documentation, and follow-up on action items.
Monitor interdependencies across functions and proactively identify, flag and resolve conflicts across workstreams.
Track project status, risks, and mitigation strategies; provide updates to internal stakeholders.
Coordinate with functional leads to understand resource needs and potential impacts to timelines.
Contribute to scenario planning and contingency thinking for critical path activities
Identify operational challenges and recommend improvements to enhance efficiency and coordination.
Work closely with functional and team leads to understand resourcing needs, identify gaps and timeline impacts.
Develop scenario plans for critical path development decisions to support contingency and investment planning to address potential delays, bottlenecks, or shifts in scope.