Computational Biologist

Arcadia Science; Emeryville (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 200,000; Full time

Job summary

Arcadia Science in Emeryville, CA, seeks several PhD-level computational scientists to convert research-grade code into scalable, production-ready tools. You will work with platform scientists and engineers to release usable software, with urgency in protein engineering and design and with growing emphasis on genetics and phylogenomics.

You will lead or contribute to projects, improve scalability, and help define what “usable” means for computational tools, ensuring robust, testable pipelines

Qualifications

• PhD in computational biology or a closely related field.
• At least 2 years of post-PhD experience in academia or industry.
• Experience producing production-quality code, not just notebooks.
• Track record of creating open tools, pipelines, or software used by others.

Responsibilities

• Lead or contribute to projects in protein engineering, design, and phylogenetic analyses.
• Improve the scalability of computational approaches for biological data.
• Develop workflows to evaluate statistical rigor of bioinformatic pipelines.
• Bridge scientists and engineers to convert prototypes into robust tools.
• Define usable inputs, outputs, edge cases, and user workflows for tools.
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to scientists and engineers.

Skills

Production code

Open-source tools

CI/CD workflows

Research-to-product

Education

PhD in computational biology

Job description

We are Arcadia Science, an evolutionary biology company founded and led by scientists. Our mission is to turn natural innovations into real-world solutions by developing systematic and quantitative approaches to leveraging biology for therapeutics R&D. We share our research as openly as possible to accelerate discovery and make our work broadly useful.

About the role

We're looking for several PhD-level computational scientists to help develop our bioinformatic tools into scalable products that are rigorous and useful for a wide range of researchers. You'll work closely with the platform scientists and engineering team, quickly and iteratively translating research-grade code and methods into something usable, testable, and ready to openly release. Our most urgent need right now is in protein engineering and design, but we're also looking for expertise in genetics and phylogenomics.

What you'll do

• Lead or contribute to projects in areas such as protein engineering and design, phylogenetic analyses, and research protocol optimization
• Improve the effectiveness or scale of computational approaches for analyzing biological data
• Develop workflows to evaluate the statistical rigor of bioinformatic pipelines
• Act as a bridge between scientists and engineers to turn research prototypes and analysis scripts into robust, user-facing tools
• Help define what \"usable\" means for a given computational tool: inputs, outputs, edge cases, and the workflows real users will expect
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to both scientists and engineers

What we're looking for

• A PhD in a relevant field (computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science, or a related discipline)
• At least 2 years of relevant post-PhD experience, in academia or industry
• Comfortable producing production-quality code, not just analysis notebooks
• A track record of creating open tools, pipelines, or software that other people used, not just running one-off analyses

Nice to have

• Familiarity with modern protein structure and design tools (e.g., AlphaFold, ESMFold, RFdiffusion, or similar)
• Track record of collaborating closely with software engineers: code review, shared repos, CI/testing workflows (rather than handing off scripts)
• Experience working with agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), with intuition around trade-offs between speed, code quality, and maintainability
• Experience taking a research tool through to a released product

Schedule, location, and compensation

This is an on-site role at Arcadia's office. We're open to either part-time or full-time arrangements. For part-time roles, we require a minimum of 15 hours/week with at least five of those hours on-site, preferably in the mornings during team strategy sessions. The annualized compensation range is $150,000-$200,000 commensurate with experience, prorated for part-time schedules.

Arcadia is an equal opportunity workplace; we welcome people from all backgrounds and communities. We provide competitive compensation and practical benefits to keep you happy and healthy so that you can do your best work.