Research Scientist, Life Sciences (Computational)

United States Digital Space LLC; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

United States Digital Space LLC is seeking an exceptional Research Scientist to join our Life Sciences team. The role blends computational biology with frontier AI, positioning us at the forefront of AI‑driven scientific discovery and biomedical research.

You will design and execute large‑scale analyses, collaborate with experimentalists, and help shape data pipelines and model frameworks. A PhD in a relevant field and proven end‑to‑end computational research experience are required.

Qualifications

• PhD in computational biology, bioinformatics, genomics, biophysics, machine learning, computer science, or related field.
• Evidence of end-to-end computational biology research with impact (publications, datasets, tools, or direction changes).
• Breadth across multiple computational biology areas.

Responsibilities

• Build, run, and maintain analyses for the Life Sciences programs: sequence analysis, structural bioinformatics, phylogenetics, and high-throughput screens.
• Collaborate with experimental biologists to design experiments and generate high-quality data.
• Draw on literature and knowledge bases to generate hypotheses for follow-up.
• Stand up and maintain computational infrastructure: data ingestion, workflows, internal databases, and user interfaces.
• Use AI tools and internal frameworks in work and contribute evaluations and datasets for model improvements.
• Handle multiple projects with breadth and flexibility.

Skills

Linux

Cloud compute environments

Scientific programming

Education

PhD in computational biology or related

Bachelor's degree or equivalent

Job description

About the company

The company’s mission is to create reliable, interpretable, and steerable AI systems. We want AI to be safe and beneficial for our users and for society as a whole. Our team is a quickly growing group of committed researchers, engineers, policy experts, and business leaders working together to build beneficial AI systems.

About the team

The company's Life Sciences team is building a world‑class research group focused on making fundamental biological discoveries. The team combines cutting‑edge AI with hands‑on biological research, positioning the company at the forefront of AI‑accelerated scientific discovery.

About the role

We're seeking an exceptional Research Scientist to join the team. This role combines deep computational biology expertise with frontier AI capabilities, positioning the company at the forefront of AI‑driven scientific discovery.

As one of the first computational members of this Life Sciences research group, you'll work on a high‑impact team that operates at the intersection of computational and experimental biology. You'll bring broad computational biology experience to bear across the team's projects, driving discoveries from large‑scale computational analysis of biological data through to results our experimental scientists can test, and moving flexibly between problems as the science demands. You'll have substantial access to Claude and you'll help establish how computational biology operates at the company.

This role offers a unique opportunity to shape how AI transforms biological research. You'll work with some of the world's best AI researchers while tackling problems that matter deeply for scientific understanding and biomedicine. If you're excited about using your computational expertise to make fundamental biological discoveries and guide the development of transformative AI systems, we want to hear from you.

Key responsibilities

• Build, run, and maintain the analysis pipelines that back the team's experimental programs: sequence analysis at petabyte scale, structural bioinformatics, phylogenetic and comparative genomics, design and analysis of high‑throughput functional screens, biological sequence modeling, etc.
• Partner directly with experimental biologists to design experiments that produce high‑quality data, and turn results around fast enough to immediately inform the next experiment
• Draw on the literature and curated biological knowledge bases alongside primary data to generate and prioritize hypotheses for experimental follow‑up
• Stand up and maintain the team's computational infrastructure: data ingestion, workflow orchestration, internal databases, and the interfaces that make all of it accessible to both researchers and AI agents
• Use Claude and our internal agent frameworks heavily in your own work, and feed what you learn back to the model‑improvement and product teams as evaluations, datasets, and concrete failure cases
• Pick up analyses across projects as priorities shift; we're looking for breadth and flexibility over a single deep specialty

Minimum qualifications

• Have a PhD in computational biology, bioinformatics, genomics, biophysics, machine learning, computer science, or a related quantitative or biological field, or equivalent industry research experience
• Have a track record of computational biology research you have led end to end, from question to result, with evidence of impact (for example publications, preprints, released datasets or tools, or research that changed a program’s direction)
• Have demonstrated breadth across multiple areas of computational biology
• Are proficient in one or more programming languages used in scientific computing and comfortable working on large datasets in Linux and cloud compute environments
• Can take an ambiguous biological question, scope the analysis, and produce a result an experimentalist can act on
• Communicate computational results clearly to both biologists and ML researchers

Preferred qualifications

• Are comfortable navigating ambiguity and developing solutions in rapidly evolving research environments
• Are results‑oriented, with a bias towards flexibility and impact
• Hands‑on experience in experimental biology, or a track record of designing experiments side by side with experimentalists
• Experience building tools, pipelines, or agentic systems on top of LLMs, or training models on biological sequence data
• Deep expertise in one or two areas of computational biology (for example structural biology, metagenomics, single‑cell genomics, or protein design) on top of the required breadth

Annual Compensation

The annual salary range for this role is $300,000 – $320,000 USD.

Logistics

Minimum education: Bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education, training, and/or experience

Required field of study: A field relevant to the role as demonstrated through coursework, training, or professional experience