AI-Driven Preclinical R&D Scientist

Mercor; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 31,000 - 52,000; Part time

Job summary

Mercor is partnering with a venture-backed AI lab building frontier AI platforms for chemistry and drug discovery. They are extending their platform into pharmaceutical development and seek hands-on preclinical R&D experts across drug modalities to guide what they build.

Are you a preclinical R&D scientist who has taken drug programs from the bench toward the clinic—curious how AI is reshaping drug discovery?

Qualifications

• Hands-on preclinical R&D experience at a company that develops its own drug assets
• Experience across discovery biology, medicinal chemistry, protein/antibody engineering, computational, in vivo/translational, PK-PD, toxicology, or CMC/formulation
• Hands-on experience with one or more drug modalities (SMs, mAbs, peptides, ADCs, etc.)
• 5+ years of relevant industry R&D experience
• Experience taking a program through lead optimization or IND-enabling/preclinical development
• Experience at mid-sized, emerging biotech outside top-20 pharma

Responsibilities

• Review technical materials and real-world R&D data in your area of expertise
• Label, classify, and annotate scientific data and model outputs to improve model performance
• Provide expert perspective on key scientific and development decisions (target/modality selection, optimization, trade-offs, risk)
• Help define structure and quality standards for the client's dataset pipeline
• Participate in expert discussions, interviews, and research engagements
• Interface directly with the client team
• This engagement is part-time (~10 hours/week) with seniority from IC to Director

Skills

Preclinical R&D

Drug discovery

Translational science

Data interpretation

Job description

Mercor is partnering with a venture-backed AI lab building frontier AI platforms for chemistry and drug discovery. They are extending their platform into pharmaceutical development and seek hands-on preclinical R&D experts across drug modalities to guide what they build.

Are you a preclinical R&D scientist who has taken drug programs from the bench toward the clinic—curious how AI is reshaping drug discovery?