Associate Director, Data Scientist

Scorpion Therapeutics; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 270,000; Full time

Job summary

Scorpion Therapeutics is seeking an experienced AI leader to manage contractors and delivery partners across applied AI initiatives. You will provide hands-on technical direction for AI prototypes, models, data pipelines, and production systems, while ensuring rigorous reviews of designs and implementation tradeoffs.

Ideal candidates will have a PhD or advanced degree with substantial industry experience in AI/ML, NLP, or generative AI, and a proven ability to guide cross‑functional teams and

Qualifications

• PhD or MS/BS with significant industry experience as stated.

Responsibilities

• Manage contractors, technical delivery partners, and AI workstreams across applied AI initiatives.
• Support contractor onboarding, work planning, technical direction, delivery coordination, quality review, and accountability.
• Provide hands‑on technical direction for AI prototypes, model development, application patterns, data pipelines, and production AI systems.
• Review technical designs, architecture decisions, model evaluation plans, code quality, implementation tradeoffs, and production-readiness.
• Contribute to prototypes, proof‑of‑concepts, notebooks, design documents, technical spikes, and code reviews.
• Promote scientific rigor, reproducibility, engineering excellence, responsible AI practices, documentation, and maintainable delivery.

Skills

Python

AI/ML

NLP

Generative AI

Communication

Education

PhD in CS/AI/ML/Computational Biology/Statistics/Engineering

MS in related field

BS in related field

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

LangChain

LangGraph

Semantic Kernel

Microsoft Agent Framework

Langfuse

AWS

Azure

Job description

Responsibilities

• Manage contractors, technical delivery partners, and AI workstreams across applied AI initiatives.
• Support contractor onboarding, work planning, technical direction, delivery coordination, quality review, and accountability.
• Provide hands‑on technical direction for AI prototypes, model development, application patterns, data pipelines, and production AI systems.
• Review technical designs, architecture decisions, model evaluation plans, code quality, implementation tradeoffs, and production-readiness.
• Contribute to prototypes, proof‑of‑concepts, notebooks, design documents, technical spikes, and code reviews.
• Promote scientific rigor, reproducibility, engineering excellence, responsible AI practices, documentation, and maintainable delivery.

Requirements

Minimum Education & Experience

• PhD (CS/AI/ML/Computational Biology/Statistics/Engineering or related) with 4+ years industry experience; or MS with 8+ years; or BS with 10+ years.
• Expertise in AI/ML/Deep Learning/NLP/Generative AI (or related).
• Experience guiding technical contributors/contractors or cross‑functional teams.
• Hands‑on experience building, evaluating, and deploying AI/ML solutions.

Core Technical Requirements

• Strong Python; experience with PyTorch/TensorFlow (or equivalent).
• Experience with clinical trial operational data/real-world data and trial feasibility/site selection/forecasting.
• Experience building GenAI apps with tools such as LangChain/LangGraph/Semantic Kernel/Microsoft Agent Framework/Langfuse/AWS/Azure (or equivalents).
• Experience designing RAG systems (chunking, embeddings, vector search, reranking, grounding, citations, retrieval evaluation, response quality).
• Experience with agentic workflows (tool use, orchestration, guardrails, human‑in‑the‑loop, prompt/context engineering, evaluation).
• Experience with APIs/microservices/notebooks/Git, automated tests, containerization, deployment, monitoring, and operational support.
• Experience deploying in regulated environments with governance/security/privacy/compliance/responsible use.

Preferred Qualifications

• AI in life sciences/drug development/clinical research/healthcare/regulatory industries.
• Publications/patents/open-source/communities or technical standards.
• Strong analytical, communication, organizational, and stakeholder management skills.
• Ability to travel.