Associate Scientist – High-Throughput Protein Discovery

Profluent; Emeryville (CA); On-site; USD 132,000 - 167,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity participation

401(k) with employer match

Generous PTO

Job summary

Profluent is assembling a team to scale its discovery engines for AI-driven protein design. This bench-focused role leads phage display campaigns, builds high-throughput platforms to measure protein-protein interactions, and collaborates with ML, protein design, automation, and bioinformatics teams to generate model-ready data outputs.

You will design and optimize campaigns, ensure QC, and contribute to assay development and data interpretation in a fast-growing, equity-backed biotech startup.

Qualifications

• MS (3+ years industry experience) or PhD in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Protein Engineering, Biophysics, Immunology, or related discipline.
• Deep hands-on experience with phage display and antibody discovery is required.
• Strong molecular biology skills for library construction and QC.

Responsibilities

• Build the founding high-throughput platforms for identifying and measuring protein-protein interactions.
• Lead phage display campaigns end-to-end, from library construction through panning, NGS, and hit validation.
• Design and troubleshoot selection strategies, including antigen selection, library QC, and stringency selections.
• Plan campaigns with ML and protein design scientists and define data requirements for model training.

Skills

Phage display

Antibody discovery

Molecular biology

NGS data analysis

Biochemistry

Education

MS or PhD in molecular biology or related field

Tools

NGS analysis software

LIMS

Automation platforms

Job description

Profluent is assembling a team to scale its discovery engines for AI-driven protein design. This bench-focused role leads phage display campaigns, builds high-throughput platforms to measure protein-protein interactions, and collaborates with ML, protein design, automation, and bioinformatics teams to generate model-ready data outputs.

You will design and optimize campaigns, ensure QC, and contribute to assay development and data interpretation in a fast-growing, equity-backed biotech startup.