Head of Bio AI - Radial

Astera Institute

Emeryville (CA)

Hybrid

USD 180,000 - 300,000

Full time

14 days+

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Job summary

A scientific research organization in Emeryville is seeking a Head of Bio AI to co-architect its scientific direction. You will establish AI architecture, prototype core systems, and build a stellar AI team while engaging collaborators in life sciences. This competitive role requires deep expertise in modern machine learning and will thrive in a hybrid model. Ideal candidates are passionate builders motivated by the opportunity to create impactful tools in a unique environment focused on innovation.

Qualifications

Deep expertise in modern ML: large-scale training and generative modeling.
Track record of building scalable systems.
Experience designing technical platforms intended to endure.
Experience solving inverse problems and reconstruction trade-offs.
Experience building ML pipelines for large-scale, data-intensive problems.

Responsibilities

Establish AI architecture across programs.
Conceive and directly prototype modeling systems.
Build and scale a high-caliber AI engineering team.
Engage scientific collaborators and build partnerships.

Skills

Deep expertise in modern ML

Track record of translating ideas into scalable systems

Understanding of machine learning and physics-based modeling

Experience with ML pipelines for large-scale problems

Systems-level thinking

Experience designing enduring technical platforms

Scientific range across problem domains

Job description

About Astera:

Astera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward an abundant future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to dramatically accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive scientific progress.

Unlike traditional non-profit research organizations, Astera funds and operates projects supported by Astera operate like high-velocity startups, allowing us to focus on ambitious goals, match structure to problem, and attract strong technical talent and leadership. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming here.

About Radial:

Radial is a research organization within Astera focused on rethinking life science research at a systems level. The systems that enable how we fund, do, and build upon science have long needed an update. At Radial, we design, fund, and operate programs that tackle foundational scientific problems while simultaneously testing better ways to do science. We're looking for people who are willing to take big risks, build useful things and share their learnings in the open.

Position Summary

Mission

Hire a founding technical leader to serve as the CEO’s technical co-pilot; the person who co-architects Radial’s scientific and technical direction, builds the AI and computational infrastructure across programs, and sets the technical bar through their own hands-on work. This is a building role: the Head of Bio AI will personally drive early prototypes, make critical architecture decisions, and help determine what Radial builds, how it builds it, and the standards to which it holds itself.

Key Outcomes (12–24 Months)

1. Technical Architecture & Program Leadership

Establish AI and computational architecture across current and future programs, beginning with DiffUSE and its expansion across multiple structural biology data modalities.
Shape which foundational bottlenecks Radial addresses and how they become durable technical systems.
Help make build-vs-fund-vs-partner decisions across Radial’s program portfolio.

2. Hands-On Building

Conceive, architect, and directly prototype early modeling systems and core infrastructure.
Design scalable training workflows, data pipelines, validation frameworks, and evaluation benchmarks.
Evolve capabilities from early prototyping to production-grade, open platforms the scientific community can build on.

3. Team & Culture

Build a high-caliber AI and engineering team, starting small and scaling deliberately.
Set the technical bar through hands-on contribution and architectural authorship.
Establish a culture of technical rigor, intellectual honesty, and disciplined experimentation.

4. Ecosystem & Impact

Engage leading scientific collaborators and build technically rigorous partnerships.
Represent Radial’s technical vision within the AI and life sciences communities.
Ensure outputs are structured and shared as durable public goods.

Competencies

Functional Expertise

Deep expertise in modern ML: large-scale training, representation learning, generative modeling (diffusion, transformers, foundation models).
Track record of translating ideas into working, scalable systems.
Understanding of the interplay between machine learning and physics-based modeling
Direct experience formulating and solving inverse problems, including familiarity with ill-posedness, regularization strategies, and the trade-offs between learned and model-based reconstruction approaches
Experience building and iterating on ML pipelines for large-scale, data-intensive problems, including efficient data ingestion, preprocessing of high-dimensional inputs, and training workflows that scale across distributed compute resources
Systems-level thinking across data generation, modeling, infrastructure, and experimentation.
Experience designing technical platforms intended to endure and compound over time.
Scientific range beyond a single modality can engage across problem domains.

Leadership Attributes

Has managed small technical teams; knows how to attract and retain exceptional talent.
Hands-on builder who sets the standard through their own work.
Deep familiarity with the frontier AI x Bio landscape.
Operates effectively in ambiguity; creates clarity through disciplined technical judgment.

Cultural Alignment