AI Biologist - Neuroscience

latch.bio; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 140,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k)

PTO: 12 days to start

Job summary

Latch.bio in the United States is seeking an AI Neuroscientist to serve as the scientific authority on ground truth for benchmarks across molecular to behavioral neuroscience. You will design tasks, curate multimodal data, and determine how expert reasoning should be judged, partnering with software engineers and neuroscientists to build robust evaluation workflows. The role emphasizes testing AI agent reasoning, distinguishing real signals from artifacts, and guiding R&D decisions.

Qualifications

• PhD or MD/PhD in neuroscience or a closely related field.
• Hands-on neuroscience research with first-hand data analysis and publications.
• Direct experience analyzing raw data in multiple modalities (electrophysiology, imaging, EEG/sEEG, neuroimaging, single-cell or omics).

Responsibilities

• Define expert reasoning for a research question and write gold-standard answers with defended rationale.
• Design realistic research scenarios across the workflow from hypothesis to inference.
• Curate multi-modal data bundles for benchmarks across normal function and disease.
• Partner with engineers to turn judgment into new workflows.
• Test and adjudicate agent reasoning step by step to ensure correctness.

Skills

Hands-on neuroscience research

Data analysis

Multimodal data analysis

Experimental design

AI agent judgment

Education

PhD or MD/PhD in neuroscience

Tools

Allen Brain Atlas/BICAN

OpenNeuro/BIDS

Job description

AI Neuroscientist

Latch builds rigorous scientific benchmarks (benchmarks.bio http://benchmarks.bio) for AI agents across biology. We work with frontier labs and pharma to measure whether agents can handle real biological workflows: the messy, multi-layer reasoning that matters in the field.

We’re seeking an AI Neuroscientist to join our Neuroscience team, pushing what AI can achieve in neuroscience.

About the Role

You will be the scientific authority on ground truth, testing whether agents can reason like an expert neuroscientist. AI agents today struggle to interrogate raw evidence across molecular, cellular, circuit, tissue, and behavioral levels, separate real effects from artifacts and confounds, and reach conclusions and R&D decisions an expert would stand behind. You will work with software engineers and neuroscientists to build the tasks and datasets behind our benchmarks across normal nervous-system function and disease; your judgment will set the standard agent outputs are held to, including:

Build the task

• Define what expert reasoning looks like for a research question or R&D decision, and write gold-standard answers with the rationale an experienced neuroscientist would defend
• Design realistic research scenarios across the workflow, from hypothesis and target selection through model-system choice, experimental design, data processing, and inference
• Curate multi-modal data bundles (electrophysiology, calcium imaging, EEG/sEEG, MRI/PET, single-cell and spatial transcriptomics, histopathology, behavior, biofluid markers)
• Pair basic-science and disease tasks (e.g., hippocampal replay in health and its disruption in epilepsy or Alzheimer’s disease) to test whether an understanding of normal function transfers to pathology
• Partner with software engineers to turn your judgment into new workflows

Set the hard calls

• Test whether agents choose the right model system and unit of analysis, and recognize when rodent, iPSC, or organoid findings will not translate to human disease
• Adjudicate contested claims in the literature: decide what the data supports, what they do not, and which experiment would settle the question

Judge the agent

• Interrogate agent reasoning step by step, and challenge conclusions that are fluent and textbook-correct but would not survive lab meeting, peer review, or a go/no-go decision
• Pinpoint where agents go wrong: state why a step fails, what an expert would do instead, and what evidence would change the call
• Score agent confidence, rewarding explicit uncertainty over overconfident binary calls when evidence is incomplete

Requirements

• PhD or MD/PhD in neuroscience or a closely related field
• Hands-on neuroscience research experience with first-hand data analysis and a publication record
• Direct experience analyzing raw data in at least two modalities: electrophysiology (patch-clamp, MEA, Neuropixels), optical imaging, EEG/sEEG, neuroimaging, single-cell or spatial omics, neuropathology, or quantitative behavior
• Deep expertise in at least one area (systems/circuit, cellular/molecular, clinical/translational, or computational neuroscience) and working fluency across system levels
• Strong command of experimental design and statistics
• Proficiency in AI agent use, with the judgment to identify where model reasoning is technically correct but scientifically unsound
• Confidence to overrule an AI agent when the evidence demands it, and the openness to update when shown wrong
• Ability to calibrate confidence and communicate uncertainty rather than defaulting to binary calls
• Practical understanding of model systems (iPSC neurons, organoids, rodents, NHP, human cohorts)
• Familiarity with core resources is a plus: Allen Brain Cell Atlas/BICAN, DANDI/NWB, OpenNeuro/BIDS, IBL, ADNI, PPMI, UK Biobank, ClinVar/gnomAD

Culture @ Latch

We practice radical transparency: you’ll know how the company is doing, what’s working, and what isn’t. It’s always us against the problem, never each other. We’re opinionated but respectful of each other’s time, and we think through possible solutions before bringing a problem to anyone. We use AI constantly, so we reward original expert judgment, not AI output passed off as your own. You’ll start on the bench that fits your expertise and can move across teams as you build a track record.

Outside of work: company outings most months, team off-sites, and a community that does cycling, soccer, figure skating, boxing, running, martial arts, music, books, and game nights.

Compensation & Logistics

Pay: $140K–$180K OTE (on-target earnings), with no ceiling.

• Your pay is your OTE times your weekly quota attainment. Hit quota, earn your OTE; double it, earn double. Example: $150K OTE at double quota = $300K.
• Your first 4 weeks (ramp) are paid at full OTE while we train you.
• You’re paid full OTE whenever quota can’t fairly apply: when a new project is starting, the platform goes down, or we pull you onto a special project.

In the US: full-time W-2

• Guaranteed base set by your state, paid every paycheck no matter what
• Health, dental, vision: 100% covered for you, 50% for dependents
• 401(k) (no match)
• PTO: 12 days to start, more as you’re promoted

Outside the US: contractor

• Paid on performance, with a monthly advance of 60% of OTE that’s never clawed back. US benefits don’t apply.

Growth

two tracks, based on output, not tenure.

Location: fully remote is fine; onsite is preferred, at our Mission Bay waterfront office in SF with catered lunch and dinner and unlimited snacks.

Work authorization: we sponsor H-1B (new and transfers), O-1, and TN, and support STEM OPT.

Interview Process

1. Apply. If your profile matches, we’ll send you a take-home project.
2. Take-home project (HackerRank). We review it as soon as it arrives.
3. Technical interview with a Member of Technical Staff (pod lead), scheduled right after your project review.
4. Culture interview with our C-suite.
5. Offer.
6. Background check, once you accept.