Senior Computational Chemist – Drug Discovery & AI Tools

General Proximity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 150,000 - 230,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Strong equity incentives

Comprehensive medical, dental, vision

Education and health/fitness incentive

Meditation retreats

Reading budget

One Medical membership

Lab access at MBC BioLabs

Job summary

General Proximity, a seed-stage drug discovery startup in San Francisco, seeks an exceptional computational chemist to drive small-molecule design from hit identification through lead optimization. The candidate will partner closely with medicinal chemistry, biology, and DMPK, applying modern computational workflows and AI-enabled tools to empower bench chemists and project teams.

The role emphasizes hands-on design, practical judgment, and collaborative tool development to accelerate DMTA

Qualifications

• PhD in Computational Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Chemical Physics, Biophysics, Cheminformatics, or related discipline.
• Minimum of 3 years of relevant experience in pharma, biotech, or drug-discovery focused research.
• Track record of using computational chemistry to impact small-molecule programs, ideally hit-to-lead or lead optimization.
• Hands-on expertise in structure- and ligand-based design (docking, MD, pharmacophore modeling, QSAR, virtual screening, FEP).
• Strong working knowledge of medicinal chemistry principles, SAR interpretation, ADME/PK concepts, and developability considerations.

Responsibilities

• Provide hands-on computational chemistry support across target evaluation, hit identification, hit-to-lead, and lead optimization.
• Apply docking, MD, pharmacophore modeling, QSAR, and virtual screening to guide design.
• Use X-ray/cryo-EM/homology/AI-derived models to generate actionable design hypotheses.
• Collaborate with medicinal chemistry to interpret SAR and optimize potency, selectivity, and developability.
• Translate modeling results into actionable recommendations for project teams.

Skills

Python programming

Computational chemistry

Communication of complex concepts

Education

PhD in Computational Chemistry or related field

Tools

RDKit

Schrödinger

MOE

ChemAxon

Job description

General Proximity, a seed-stage drug discovery startup in San Francisco, seeks an exceptional computational chemist to drive small-molecule design from hit identification through lead optimization. The candidate will partner closely with medicinal chemistry, biology, and DMPK, applying modern computational workflows and AI-enabled tools to empower bench chemists and project teams.

The role emphasizes hands-on design, practical judgment, and collaborative tool development to accelerate DMTA