Head of R&D

Abstract Bio; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 250,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Abstract Bio in San Francisco seeks a Head of R&D to own the science that drives cost per base-pair down and expands the product envelope beyond current limits. You will build and lead the team that converts bench discoveries into scalable production, shaping the roadmap for cheaper, more capable DNA inputs.

You will report to the founders, serve as the company''s senior scientific voice with customers, partners and investors, and lead an evolving role that grows with the company.

Qualifications

• PhD-level depth in DNA synthesis and assembly.
• Experience moving protocols into production.
• Strong cost-awareness and data-driven decisions.
• Leadership with hands-on bench work.

Responsibilities

• Own the cost curve for base-pair level economics.
• Expand to longer, harder, higher-fidelity DNA sequences.
• Lead first RNA or protein product development on DNA platform.
• Oversee bench-to-pilot-to-manufacturing gate process.
• Build and grow the R&D team with documented learnings.
• Represent science to customers, partners, and investors.

Skills

Oligo synthesis

Gene assembly

Error correction

Production to scale

Leadership & mentoring

Education

PhD in a relevant field

Tools

Oxford Nanopore

PacBio

Illumina

Job description

We read every application ourselves and reply within a week.

TLDR

We are building the biological inputs factory that will unlock AI for biology, starting from DNA, the first building block of every biomolecule. Demand for our first DNA product outran our capacity within months of launch, and we are now scaling 10x. As our Head of R&D, you will own the science that decides our cost per base-pair, our yield, and how far past today's limits of length, complexity and fidelity we can push. You will set the research agenda, build and lead the team that executes it, and hand production a platform that gets cheaper every quarter. The best candidate is a scientist who still runs the hard experiment themselves, has shipped a method into a production environment at least once, and values impact over title. Your role will evolve with time; you should be excited by that and step up when needed. THIS IS NOT A 9 TO 5.

Story and mission

The Bessemer process made steel cheap and set off the Second Industrial Revolution. AI is now doing the same to biological design, and cloud labs and robots are doing it to testing. That pushes the bottleneck to the build step: the physical inputs. Every protein and every RNA starts as DNA, and DNA is still expensive. With current suppliers, the DNA to test one therapeutic antibody design costs around $100 per data point; a good antibody needs thousands of them, and a good antibody model needs millions. Abstract Bio is building the factory for those inputs, starting from DNA, the first building block.We brought a DNA product, 4-10x cheaper than incumbents, to market within 6 months of founding the company. With a team of three and word of mouth alone, demand quickly outran our capacity, so we are now building for true scale. This means a 10x larger production platform, adding long and plasmid DNA, and starting the first R&D on RNA and proteins.Scaling production is only half the problem. The other half is the science: every order we ship is bounded by the cost, length, complexity and error rate of our chemistry and assembly methods. Moving those boundaries is the job of R&D, and so is taking us up the value chain. RNA and proteins sit directly above DNA in the same supply chain, and whoever owns the cheapest source of DNA has an unfair advantage in making every other biomolecule. Our North Star is to be the biological inputs factory that gives scientists any biomolecule, on demand: the missing part of the stack that will unlock AI for biology.

We are turning DNA into a commodity, and a commodity wins on cost and reliability. The Head of R&D owns the roadmap that drives our cost per base-pair down and our product envelope out: longer sequences, harder sequences (repeats, extreme GC, homopolymers), lower error rates, faster turnaround.Our Head of Production and their production associates run the factory today; you and your Scientists decide what it will be able to make next year. You will run a tight loop between research and production: prototype a method at the bench, prove it at pilot scale with real customer orders, then transfer it to manufacturing with the specs, QC gates and documentation that let it run without you. You report to the founders and will be the company's senior scientific voice with customers, partners and investors.This is a company-defining role. We will give you the autonomy to do your life's best work, and the room to grow into the leader who sets the scientific direction of Abstract Bio.

What you will do

• Own the cost curve. Keep widening our 4-10x cost advantage, proving each lever with data before it reaches production.
• Expand what we can make. Push to longer, harder, higher-fidelity DNA, and build the sequence-difficulty models that tell sales what to promise.
• Look past DNA. Pick our first RNA or protein product and build the proof of concept on our DNA platform.
• Run the research-to-production loop. Set the stage gates from bench to pilot to manufacturing; you own success after transfer, not just before.
• Build the R&D team. Hire the first scientists and keep their work logged so our computational scientists can learn from it.
• Be the scientific face of the company. Represent our science to customers, partners and investors, and judge which new technologies are worth betting on.

What you need to succeed

• You have made DNA at scale. You have deep, hands-on experience in oligo synthesis, gene assembly and error correction, and a PhD or equivalent depth.
• You have shipped a method, not just published one. At least one of your protocols runs in production without you in the room.
• You lead from the bench. You hire, coach and let go, and still run the critical experiment yourself when needed.
• You think in cost per unit. Every experiment has a number attached: dollars per base-pair, error rate per kb.
• You move fast and stay calm. You iterate fast with proper controls, think clearly under stress, and explain decisions in plain language.

Nice-to-haves

• You are a sequencing wizard. You have used long-read and short-read sequencing (ONT, PacBio, Illumina) for QC at scale, and you know how to read a run to fix a chemistry problem.
• You have seen the next thing coming. Hands-on exposure to enzymatic DNA synthesis, new assembly techniques, error-correction innovations and an informed view on which of them matter in the next two years.
• You can multiply yourself. You are a magnet for talent, with a bench of rigorous former colleagues who would follow you to the right opportunity, especially if you are the one sounding the horn.