Medicinal Chemist - Fully Remote | Up to $90/hr

Obsidian; San Francisco (CA); Remote; USD 56,000 - 89,000; Part time

Job summary

Obsidian is seeking a researcher to design and curate rigorous AI research prompts for frontier problems in drug discovery. You will build a data room from real sources and define a grading framework to assess solutions with emphasis on reasoning quality, not just outcomes.

The role requires deep expertise in mechanistic enzymology or related fields, and you will work in a browser-based studio with Claude Code. Minimum 20 hours per week, up to 40, with flexible remote arrangements.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent industry track record in relevant field.
• Expertise in enzymology, structure-guided design, or fragment-based discovery.
• Ability to justify problem design and judge reasoning quality.

Responsibilities

• Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and forcing chain that makes one conclusion inevitable.
• Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source-grounded data. Every decisive value traces to a real source.
• Write the grader — a grading document that scores a memo on substance, not style.
• Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.
• Revise it — you own the rework if a reviewer requests changes.

Skills

Mechanistic enzymology

Structure-guided design

Fragment-based discovery

Medicinal chemistry

Education

PhD or equivalent industry track record

Tools

Claude Code

Claude Max

Job description

About the role

This is an evaluation framework for frontier AI models in drug research and development. Domain experts write realistic research problems wrapped around messy evidence worlds. The model works offline in a sandbox with open-source scientific tooling, receiving incomplete, indirect and sometimes misleading data, and must reach a defensible conclusion. The answer is present in the evidence but never stated.

Your job is to build a research problem so realistic and well-constructed that the model has to genuinely reason to solve it — it can't pattern-match or look the answer up.

What you'll deliver

Three things per task: the prompt, the data room, and the grading document.

1. Design the challenge — identify the hidden basin and the forcing chain that makes one conclusion inevitable.

2. Build the world — assemble a data room from real, source‑grounded data. Every decisive value traces to a real source.

3. Write the grader — a grading document that scores a submitted memo on substance, not style or method.

4. Validate it — run verification and calibration before submission.

5. Revise it — you own the rework if a reviewer requests changes.

You are the final authority on every scientific and difficulty question in your task.

Who we're looking for

• Working expertise in mechanistic enzymology, structure‑guided peptide or antibody design, fragment‑based discovery, or structure‑based medicinal chemistry — PhD or equivalent industry track record.

• You can pose a problem whose answer you can defend rigorously, but which a strong solver cannot shortcut.

• Comfortable judging reasoning quality, not just final answers.

Commitment

Minimum 20 hours per week, up to 40.

Tooling

Work happens in a browser‑based studio plus Claude Code. A Claude Max subscription is required and is fully reimbursed.