Scientific Account Executive

Adaptyv; Lausanne; Hybrid; CHF 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Adaptyv in Lausanne is seeking a hybrid sales and customer success professional with real scientific depth to be the primary contact for customers from first conversations through ongoing engagement.

You will discuss binding kinetics, assist in designing experiments on our platform, onboard new users, and monitor accounts, flagging issues early while proposing next steps based on results. A strong scientific background and client-facing experience are essential.

Qualifications

• Science background in protein engineering/biochemistry/biophysics.
• Experience in customer-facing technical roles (sales/account mgmt).
• Strong communication and pipeline-management skills.

Responsibilities

• Own the full customer lifecycle: prospecting, technical sales conversations, onboarding, and ongoing account management.
• Serve as the technical point of contact for customers.
• Explain assay capabilities and design considerations with customers (binding, expression, thermostability, enzyme activity).
• Identify expansion opportunities within existing accounts (new targets, larger campaigns).
• Feed customer insights back to product and biology teams to guide roadmap.

Skills

Scientific depth

Customer-facing experience

Communication

Self-starter

AI-driven protein design interest

Education

Bachelor's or higher in protein engineering/biochem/biophysics

Tools

BLI

SPR

Cell-free expression

Job description

Adaptyv is building an automated lab that lets AI agents run biology experiments. We're entering the era of agentic science where AI models can now design novel proteins, propose hypotheses, and iterate on experimental results. But they can't run the experiments themselves - that's still a manual, months-long process. We're building the infrastructure that gives AI agents access to the physical world. We are one of the fastest growing biotech companies, trusted by leading biopharmas, frontier AI labs, and the techbio companies pushing the field forward. This is a rare chance to help advance some of the most important work happening in biotech today. Our automated lab is powered by a deep software + hardware stack: lab instruments worth millions of USD reverse-engineered into API-controllable hardware, dozens of devices orchestrated through complex workflows, full observability on everything that happens in the lab, processing pipelines for messy physical-world data, and AI systems that troubleshoot production results and accelerate assay development. We’re growing rapidly and are hiring for talented people to scale and support the massive demand for AI-driven wet lab experimentation.

About the role

This is a hybrid sales and customer success role for someone with real scientific depth. You'll be the primary point of contact for customers — from first conversation through ongoing engagement. That means understanding what a protein design team is actually trying to achieve, helping them pick the right assays, making sure their experiments are set up correctly, and translating results back into language that's useful for their programs.

The day-to-day

• Running technical sales calls where you discuss binding kinetics, expression systems, and assay design, not just pricing
• Onboarding new customers and helping them design their first experiments on the platform
• Monitoring ongoing accounts, flagging issues early, and proactively suggesting next steps based on their results
• Working with the biology team to troubleshoot when a customer's experiment doesn't go as expected
• Identifying expansion opportunities within existing accounts — new targets, new assay types, larger campaigns

Responsibilities

• Own the full customer lifecycle: prospecting, technical sales conversations, deal closing, onboarding, and ongoing account management.
• Serve as the technical point of contact for customers.
• Understand their protein engineering goals and recommend the right experiments (binding, expression, thermostability, enzyme activity).
• Understand and explain our assay capabilities in depth: BLI, SPR, cell-free expression, and emerging assay types. Know when each is appropriate and what the data means.
• Work closely with the biology team to ensure experiments are designed correctly and results are communicated clearly.
• Build and maintain a pipeline of commercial opportunities across customer segments: AI-driven protein design companies, biotech startups, pharma R&D teams, and academic labs.
• Develop proposals and quotes tailored to customer needs, from small pilot experiments to large-scale data generation campaigns.
• Represent Adaptyv at conferences and industry events. Be able to have deep technical conversations at the booth, not just hand out brochures.
• Feed customer insights back to the product and biology teams: what assays are people asking for, what's missing, where are we losing deals.

What we're looking for

• Scientific background in protein engineering, biochemistry, biophysics, or a related field. You should be comfortable discussing binding kinetics (KD, kon, koff), expression systems, and assay design without needing to look things up.
• Experience in a customer-facing technical role: field application scientist, technical sales, scientific account management, or similar.
• CRO or biotech vendor experience is a strong plus.
• Commercially driven. You care about revenue, pipeline, and closing deals, not just having interesting scientific conversations.
• Strong communicator who can adapt to the audience: detailed and technical with a scientist, concise and business-focused with a VP.
• Self-starter who can manage their own pipeline and priorities without heavy oversight.
• Genuine interest in AI-driven protein design and the companies working in this space. You follow what's happening in the field.