Medicinal Chemist - AI-Driven Lead Optimization (Onsite)

Edison Scientific; United States; On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Full healthcare coverage

Equity

Parental leave (12+ weeks)

Mental health support

401(k) matching

Lunch and dinner provided

Commuter benefits

Wellness stipend

Team off-sites

Job summary

Edison Scientific is seeking a hands-on Medicinal Chemist to join our Forward Deployed team, embedded with pharmaceutical and biotech partners. You will ensure AI-generated chemistry is credible, synthesizable, and useful to real discovery teams, translating chemistry thinking into agent behavior.

You will build benchmarks, evaluate outputs, and partner with medicinal chemists to integrate AI workflows across hit-to-lead programs.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, or related field with 5+ years in industry.
• Track record in lead optimization campaigns from hit identification to candidate nomination.
• Deep knowledge of cheminformatics tools and data-informed design decisions.

Responsibilities

• Improve AI agent performance for hit-to-lead chemistry tasks including SAR analysis and design.
• Design benchmarks and acceptance criteria for chemistry-focused agent workflows.
• Partner with medicinal chemists to integrate AI agents into discovery workflows.
• Serve as the chemistry expert on AI outputs, assessing structure and actionable insights.
• Collaborate daily with Forward Deployed Engineers and Computational Biologists.
• Support engagement scoping, success metrics, and technical evaluations with GTM teams.

Skills

Lead optimization

SAR analysis

Structure-based design

Synthetic feasibility analysis

Chemoinformatics collaboration

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

PhD in Computational Chemistry

Tools

RDKit

Schrödinger

MOE

ADMET

DMPK data integration

Job description

Edison Scientific is seeking a hands-on Medicinal Chemist to join our Forward Deployed team, embedded with pharmaceutical and biotech partners. You will ensure AI-generated chemistry is credible, synthesizable, and useful to real discovery teams, translating chemistry thinking into agent behavior.

You will build benchmarks, evaluate outputs, and partner with medicinal chemists to integrate AI workflows across hit-to-lead programs.