Computational Chemist

Edison Scientific; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 250,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare coverage

Parental support stipend

Fertility coverage

Mental health support

Parental leave

Pet care stipend

Commuter benefits

401(k) matching

Wellness stipend

Lunch and dinner provided

Team off-sites

Job summary

Edison Scientific in San Francisco, CA seeks a Computational Chemist to join our Forward Deployed team, embedding with pharma/biotech partners. You will ensure AI-driven chemistry is credible, synthesizable, and actionable, translating discovery thinking into agent behavior.

You’ll benchmark outputs, work with medicinal chemists, and feed insights back to improve molecular design reasoning. Onsite role with substantial collaboration.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, or related field and 5+ years of industry experience.
• Deep knowledge of cheminformatics tools such as RDKit, Schrödinger, MOE.
• Track record in lead optimization campaigns from hit identification through nomination.
• Experience integrating ADMET and DMPK data into design decisions.
• Ability to travel 20-40% of the time.

Responsibilities

• Improve AI agent performance to hit-to-lead chemistry tasks including SAR analysis, structure-based design, and synthetic feasibility analysis
• Design benchmarks and acceptance criteria for chemistry focused agent workflows
• Partner with medicinal chemists at client organizations to integrate AI agents into their discovery workflows
• Serve as the chemistry expert on AI generated outputs, assessing structural soundness, flagging failure modes, and determining what's actionable
• Collaborate daily with Forward Deployed Engineers and Computational Biologists on each account
• Support engagement scoping, success metrics, and technical evaluation with our go-to-market team members

Skills

Python

Therapeutic areas

Ambiguity tolerance

Education

Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry / Medicinal Chemistry

Tools

RDKit

Schrödinger

MOE

Job description

ABOUT US

Edison Scientific builds and deploys AI scientist agents to accelerate science and the development of new medicines. We are an ambitious team run by scientists and engineers from leading institutions across biology, physics, chemistry, and AI.

ABOUT THE ROLE

We're looking for a Computational Chemist to join our Forward Deployed team, embedded directly with pharma and biotech partners alongside our engineers and computational biologists. Your job: make sure our AI agents produce chemistry that's credible, synthesizable, and useful to real drug discovery teams.

You'll build benchmarks, evaluate agent outputs, and work with our medicinal chemist partners, to find where AI creates the most value in their design, synthesis, testing, and analysis cycles.

This is onsite, hands-on work. You'll build relationships with discovery leaders, translate their chemistry thinking into agent behavior, and feed insights back to our AI team to improve how our platform reasons about molecular design.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Improve AI agent performance to hit-to-lead chemistry tasks including SAR analysis, structure-based design, and synthetic feasibility analysis
• Design benchmarks and acceptance criteria for chemistry focused agent workflows
• Partner with medicinal chemists at client organizations to integrate AI agents into their discovery workflows
• Serve as the chemistry expert on AI generated outputs, assessing structural soundness, flagging failure modes, and determining what's actionable
• Collaborate daily with Forward Deployed Engineers and Computational Biologists on each account
• Support engagement scoping, success metrics, and technical evaluation with our go-to-market team members

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, or a related field and 5+ years of industry experience, ideally within a pharma or biotech sponsor organization
• Deep knowledge of cheminformatics tools such as RDKit, Schrödinger, or MOE
• Track record in lead optimization campaigns from hit identification through candidate nomination
• Experience integrating ADMET and DMPK data into design decisions
• Ability to travel 20-40% of the time

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Proficiency in Python
• Experience working across multiple therapeutic areas
• High comfort with ambiguity and fast iteration

SALARY

$180K – $250K Offers Equity

WHY JOIN US?

We're a fast-moving, mission-driven culture where smart people do their best work and actually enjoy doing it. We also offer full-time employees the following:

• Competitive salary and equity
• Full healthcare coverage; we pay 100% of premiums for you and your dependents
• Support for growing families, including a yearly new parent stipend and fertility coverage through Carrot
• Mental health support through Rula, our in-network therapist and psychiatrist network with fast availability
• 12 weeks of paid parental leave for maternity, paternity, and adoption
• Pet care support with a yearly employer-funded stipend for your animal companions
• Commuter benefits so you can pay for transit and parking with pre-tax dollars
• 401(k) company matching
• $300 health and wellness benefit quarterly
• Lunch is on us every day you're in the office, and dinner is on us when you're working late
• Regular team off-sites and company events

Edison Scientific is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.