AI Research Engineer

Menlo Ventures; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 190,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Bonus

Equity

Flexible work environment

Job summary

An innovative biotech startup is seeking a Research Engineer to leverage AI for drug discovery. The role involves designing AI systems, collaborating with experts, and developing solutions for therapeutic challenges. Candidates should have a strong background in machine learning, with opportunities for both senior and early career professionals. A competitive salary range of $190,000 - $280,000 is offered, along with a benefits package in an inclusive work environment.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in building and deploying ML systems for senior candidates.
• Strong academic or early industry experience in areas like LLMs or computational biology for earlier career candidates.
• Experience with large-scale model training.

Responsibilities

• Design and develop AI/ML systems for therapeutic discovery.
• Build scalable pipelines for large biological datasets.
• Collaborate with teams to define problems and iterate on solutions.

Skills

Machine learning

Python

Deep learning

Computational biology

AI techniques

Education

Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

JAX

Job description

About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

About the Role

We are seeking a Research Engineer to join our interdisciplinary AI team, working at the intersection of machine learning and therapeutic discovery. In this role, you will collaborate closely with AI scientists, engineers, and drug discovery experts to design, build, and deploy AI systems that accelerate the identification and development of novel therapeutics.

This role spans a range of problem spaces, from building production-grade machine learning systems for biological data to developing next-generation AI agents that can reason over complex biomedical information. Depending on your background and interests, you may focus on applied ML systems, agentic AI, or a combination of both.

We are particularly interested in candidates who are excited to translate cutting-edge advances in AI into real-world impact within drug discovery, and who are comfortable working in fast-paced, cross-functional environments.

What You Will Do

• Design and develop AI/ML systems to support therapeutic discovery, including model training, evaluation, and deployment.
• Build scalable pipelines for processing and integrating large, complex biological datasets.
• Collaborate with computational and experimental teams to define problems, evaluate outputs, and iterate on solutions.
• Develop robust, production-ready systems that can be integrated into scientific workflows.
• Explore and apply emerging AI techniques to improve model performance and system capabilities.

Depending on your focus, you may also:

• Build agentic AI systems capable of multi-step reasoning, planning, and tool use in biomedical contexts.
• Develop LLM-based systems that retrieve, synthesize, and reason over scientific literature, omics data, and clinical datasets.
• Integrate external tools (analysis pipelines, simulation engines, databases) into intelligent, autonomous workflows.
• Design systems that combine structured and unstructured data in scalable, production environments.

Leveling

We are hiring across levels and are open to candidates with a range of experience:

For more experienced candidates (Senior level):

• 5+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML systems in production environments
• Proven track record of scaling models and delivering impactful, production-grade solutions.
• Experience leading technical projects and driving cross-functional execution.

For candidates earlier in their careers:

• Strong academic or early industry experience, particularly in areas such as LLMs, agentic systems, or computational biology.
• Hands-on experience with model development, experimentation, or applied ML projects.
• Demonstrated ability to learn quickly and apply new techniques to real-world problems.

Preferred Skills and Qualifications

• Degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Computational Biology, or a related field.
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with modern ML frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, JAX, TensorFlow).
• Solid understanding of machine learning and deep learning fundamentals.
• Experience working with complex datasets and building end-to-end ML workflows.
• Experience with large-scale model training or foundation models.
• Experience working with biological or biomedical datasets (e.g., genomics, transcriptomics, clinical data).
• Familiarity with LLMs, agent-based systems, or complex orchestration frameworks.
• Publication record at top ML conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR) or equivalent industry impact.
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work in a collaborative, multidisciplinary environment.

Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. We offer a competitive package that includes base salary, bonus, and equity. The base pay range for this position is expected to be $190,000 - $280,000 annually; however, the base pay offered may vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.
Xaira Therapeutics an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.