AI Resident - Strategic Research

UPSIDE Group; Emeryville (CA); Remote; USD 12,000 - 24,000; Part time

Job summary

UPSIDE Foods is seeking an AI Resident within the Enterprise Intelligence team in a 12‑week residency that blends AI research with biology. You will frame strategic questions, perform rapid public research, and synthesize evidence-backed recommendations for executive leadership.

The role requires coordinating with scientists, engineers, and senior leaders, with remote work and Bay Area visits as needed. The position offers paid hourly compensation at $50/hour and requires 20–40 hours per week,

Qualifications

• Ownership and drive to lead a research mandate.
• MBA/consulting or hands-on experience in value capture for tech-enabled firms.
• Fluent with AI research tools to work quickly and rigorously.

Responsibilities

• Frame strategic questions with leadership and own the research plan end to end.
• Conduct fast desk research using AI tools and synthesize findings for decision-ready outputs.
• Speak with industry practitioners to test findings and refine insights.
• Back claims with external evidence and verify capabilities with experts.

Skills

Ownership

MBA/consulting

AI tools for research

Clear writing

Biotech/AI curiosity

Confidential handling

Availability 20 hrs/wk

MBA candidate/strategy background

Biotech/AI network

Lateral collaboration

Education

MBA or related

Tools

Claude

Gemini

NotebookLM

Job description

UPSIDE Foods is the world's leading cultivated meat company. We’re building a new food system that moves meat forward by rethinking it from the source. By growing real meat from animal cells, we give people the choice to enjoy the meat they love without killing animals. Our work directly addresses the environmental and ethical impacts of the modern food system while supporting global food and nutrition security. It’s a vision legendary conservationist Jane Goodall called "one of the biggest ideas offering planetary hope."\

Based in Emeryville, California, UPSIDE Foods has achieved numerous industry-defining milestones, including making the first cultivated meat to be green-lit by both the FDA and the USDA and sold in the United States. Our team has won numerous industry awards, including TIME World’s Top GreenTech Companies 2026, New York Times’ Good Tech Awards, FastCo’s Next Big Thing in Tech, and the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For.

To date, UPSIDE Foods has raised more than $600 million in funding from a diverse group of leading U.S. and global investors, including Cargill, SoftBank, Temasek, Tyson and Whole Foods.

About this Residency:

At UPSIDE Foods, we're turning the promise of cultivated meat into a delicious, nutritious reality, and we're using AI to do it, from faster R&D to scaled manufacturing and commercial. As an AI Resident within the Enterprise Intelligence team, you'll join a tight-knit group of data scientists and IT & software developers who partner with our sci/tech teams and senior leaders to make meat with advanced computing. Your work will inform how we apply AI across the company as cultivated meat scales worldwide.

This Residency is a chance to own a strategic research mandate from first question to final recommendation. You'll start by framing questions with leadership and building a research plan. You'll then use AI tools to move fast across public evidence, test what you find in conversations with people who know the industry, and turn it into clear, position‑taking written work for our executive team. The specific focus of the work is shared with finalists under a confidentiality agreement.

This twelve‑week residency, in two six‑week phases, gives you a front‑row seat to how AI and biology come together in a working cultivated meat company, and by the end you'll have delivered a body of evidence‑backed findings and recommendations that shape decisions at UPSIDE.

What you'll do:

• Collaborate with senior stakeholders to frame strategic questions and build a research plan you own end to end.
• Use AI tools to run fast, wide desk research across public sources, and synthesize what you find into clear, decision‑ready findings.
• Speak with industry practitioners and experts to test and sharpen your findings.
• Back every claim with cited external evidence, and check claims about UPSIDE's own capabilities with our subject‑matter experts.
• Write and present recommendations to executive leadership at a midpoint and a final readout.
• Work closely with Enterprise Intelligence and scientific teammates to turn findings into materials the team can use.
• 20 to 40 hrs/wk, agreed with you up front, and compatible with other commitments.

Qualifications:

• Strong ownership instincts. You're able to drive a mandate forward, deliver on time and in full, and navigate messy cross‑functional objectives.
• Commercial and financial reasoning, from an MBA, consulting, or hands‑on experience. You understand how technology‑enabled companies create and capture value.
• Fluent with AI tools for research and analysis (e.g., Claude, Gemini, NotebookLM), and you use them to work quickly and rigorously.
• Clear writer who takes a position and supports it with evidence.
• Curious about the biotech and AI business landscape, and how companies in it are built and partner.
• Comfortable handling confidential information with discretion.
• Able to protect at least 20 hrs/wk for 12 weeks, be available during business hours in US time zones, and travel to our Bay Area facility at least twice, at our expense.
• Recommended: mammalian cell culture or bioprocess experience, prior market or competitive analysis, a network in biotech or AI.
• Preference for current or recent MBA students, strategy consultants, biopharma professionals in transition, or PhD or MA in biology and AI.

Who you'll work with:

• Our Enterprise Intelligence team, who build Applied AI at UPSIDE, have instrumented our manufacturing and R&D data, and steward our data lake.
• Bioprocess and cellular‑biology scientists and engineers who bring years of hands‑on experience and review claims about our capabilities.
• Senior leaders across the company who will read your work and act on it.

Length of residency:

12 weeks

Compensation:

Paid hourly at $50/hour*

Location:

Remote, with potential visits to our Bay Area facility for onboarding and readouts.

*Pay may vary depending on factors including job‑related knowledge and skills.

UPSIDE Foods is an equal opportunity employer and we value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status, or disability status. Our company‑wide mission is to create a product for everyone, so we are deeply committed to having teams and leaders that reflect this mission.