Contract Computational Biologist (Hybrid)

Form Bio; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 120,000 - 140,000; Full time

Job summary

Form Bio is seeking a Computational Biologist (Hybrid) in the San Francisco Bay Area. You will lead analyses across gene editing, RNA design, and protein design, building scalable pipelines and collaborating with R&D and software teams.

A strong background in multiomics and NGS analytics is required, along with 10–15% customer-facing responsibilities. You will work with cutting-edge AI-enabled tools to translate biology questions into computational solutions, contributing to product development

Qualifications

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Genomics, or a related life sciences field.
• Proven experience in a bioinformatician role with multiomics datasets (RNA-Seq, WGS, ChIP-Seq).
• Expertise in Python or R scripting.
• Experience with NGS analysis and workflows in Nextflow, Snakemake, or WDL.
• Willingness to spend 10–15% of time in customer-facing work.

Responsibilities

• Design and evaluate gene editing workflows and guide RNA analyses.
• Develop computational RNA design and protein design tools.
• Build and maintain bioinformatics pipelines for large datasets.
• Collaborate with biologists, software engineers, and customers to scope analyses.
• Explain results clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Skills

Python

R

Bioinformatics

Multiomics analysis

Customer-facing

Communication

Education

Master’s or Ph.D. in Bioinformatics/Genomics

Tools

Nextflow

Snakemake

WDL

Job description

Computational Biologist (Hybrid)

Location

San Francisco Bay Area

Pay Range

$120,000–$140,000, based on location and experience

Team

R&D

Split

~10–15% customer-facing (required) · ~20–25% wet lab (preferred emphasis) · remainder computational

We are so excited you are interested in joining our team! Candidates are encouraged to apply even if they do not tick every box. If you are excited to empower science through innovation, we want to hear from you!

About Form Bio

Form Bio provides award-winning AI and computational solutions for genetic medicine and synthetic biology leaders. By combining data, technology,expertise and lab-in-a-loop, Form’s solutions accelerate timelines from discovery to clinic by providing drug developers with rapid in silico characterization and optimization of their therapeutics followed by the lab validation — enabling higher yields, better expression, enhanced safety and shorter, less-expensive development cycles.

Form Bio’s proprietary patent protected AI models are the first of their kind, purpose-built to solve the most complex challenges in genetic engineering and design for gene and nucleic acid-based therapies. With cross-disciplinary expertise spanning software engineering, biology, bioinformatics, AI, and data science, the Form Bio team collaborates closely with customers on their most pressing and strategic challenges and opportunities.

For more information, visit www.formbio.com

About the Role

We’re looking for a highly skilled Computational Biologist to join our team. The ideal candidate will be an expert in biological data analysis and computational biology, with a passion for leveraging data to solve complex problems. You’ll work closely with our R&D and engineering teams, translating biological questions into computational solutions and helping to build tools that will advance scientific discovery and product development.

This role sits at the center of three areas we are actively building: gene editing workflows, computational RNA design, and computational protein design. You will help turn these from project work into productized, repeatable capabilities.

Because Form Bio works shoulder-to-shoulder with drug developers and synbio partners, this is not a heads-down role. We expect roughly 10–15% of your time to be customer-facing, and we are looking for someone who sees that as a feature rather than a tax.

What You’ll Be Doing

Gene Editing Workflows

• Design and evaluate guide RNAs across editing modalities
• Build and run on- and off-target validation analyses
• Quantify editing outcomes from sequencing data

Computational RNA Design

• Design and optimize RNA sequences
• Model secondary structure, thermodynamic stability, and folding to inform design decisions.
• Screen candidate sequences for proper characteristics before they reach the bench.

Computational Protein Design

• Apply structure prediction and modeling to engineer therapeutic and tool proteins (e.g. editors, nucleases, capsids, regulatory elements).
• Optimize variants for expression, stability, specificity, and reduced immunogenicity, and prioritize designs for experimental testing.
• Work with ML/AI teammates to fold protein design models into Form Bio’s platform.

Data Analysis & Pipelines

• Analyze large-scale biological datasets (e.g. genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics) to identify novel patterns and insights.
• Design, implement, and maintain bioinformatics pipelines and workflows in Nextflow, Snakemake, or WDL for efficient, reproducible data processing.
• Stay current with the latest bioinformatics algorithms, software, and databases to ensure our methods are cutting-edge.

Collaboration & Customer Engagement (10–15%)

• Work with biologists, computational scientists, and software engineers to understand research needs and develop custom analytical tools.
• Spend roughly 10–15% of your time in a customer-facing capacity — this is a requirement of the role, not an optional add-on.
• Join scientific discussions with customer teams to scope problems, present results, and translate their questions into analyses we can run.
• Clearly communicate complex results and findings to both technical and non-technical audiences, and represent Form Bio’s science credibly to external partners.

Optional: Wet-Lab Emphasis (20–25%)

We give preference to candidates who want to split their time, spending roughly 20–25% of their effort at the bench with a focus on sequencing workflows. This is an option, not a requirement — strong purely computational candidates are equally encouraged to apply.

• Execute NGS and long-read library preparation and sequencing runs (Illumina short-read; PacBio HiFi and/or Oxford Nanopore long-read).
• Support amplicon, targeted panel, and whole-genome or whole-transcriptome workflows used for editing and design validation.
• Own run QC and troubleshooting, and feed practical assay knowledge back into pipeline and experiment design.
• Help close the loop between in silico design and empirical validation — designing the assay you will later analyze.

Qualifications

Required

• Master’s or Ph.D. in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Genomics, or a related life sciences field.
• Proven experience in a bioinformatician role, including analysis of multiomics datasets (RNA-Seq, WGS, ChIP-Seq, etc.).
• Expertise in scripting languages such as Python or R.
• Experience with NGS analysis and writing workflows in Nextflow, Snakemake, or WDL.
• Solid understanding of biological principles, including molecular biology and genetics.
• Hands-on experience in at least one of: gene editing analysis, computational RNA design, or computational protein design.
• Willingness to spend approximately 10–15% of your time in a customer-facing role.
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Preferred

• Experience across more than one of the three focus areas above.
• Familiarity with long-read sequencing data (PacBio, Oxford Nanopore) and the analysis challenges specific to it.
• For the wet-lab track: hands-on NGS library prep and sequencer operation experience.
• Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g. AWS, GCP).
• Experience with complex data visualization and data engineering.
• Exposure to cell and gene therapy, CRISPR, mRNA, or AAV programs in an industry setting.
• Prior experience presenting technical work to customers, collaborators, or external scientific partners.

Required Skills & Abilities

• Desire to work collaboratively across multi-functional departments, and to make decisions both collectively and independently.
• Self-motivated, detail-oriented, and highly organized, with a drive to reach high-caliber milestones.
• Roll-up-your-sleeves mentality; adaptable to start-up environments with competing deadlines and multiple deliverables.
• Strong analytical, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication across mediums and audiences, with the poise to hold a scientific conversation with a customer and high emotional intelligence for building relationships at all levels, internally and externally.
• Utmost integrity and understanding of confidentiality, as the position requires.
• Comfortable in ambiguous situations and results focused; prior experience with fast-paced, early-stage, scaling organizations.

Working at Form Bio

The team at Form Bio is committed, colorful, passionate, intelligent, collaborative, creative, experienced, scientific, and world-class. Through it all, we maintain a culture of positivity, hope, happiness, and the belief that we’re doing something formative.

At Form Bio, we strive to create an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and team members without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth, lactation and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. Form Bio believes that diversity is paramount to our success, and we seek to recruit, develop, and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. All employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need.