Senior Manager, Projects and Programs - Research

Xairatherapeutics; South San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 148,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Xaira Therapeutics seeks a Project Manager to support Agentic AI Initiatives, bridging ML/AI, software, and biologics R&D. You will coordinate cross-functional teams, track milestones, and manage timelines to keep fast-moving programs on schedule.

The role emphasizes scientific depth and collaboration with scientific and technical leads, requiring strong project management skills and a hands-on biology/ML background. On-site in SSF. Competitive compensation.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree in life sciences or computational biology preferred.
• 6+ years in industry with biology research and project management responsibilities.
• Proven track record managing research or technical programs.
• Working fluency in biologics research and ML research with hands-on experience a plus.
• Strong analytical, planning, organizational skills and ability to translate complex science into clear plans.

Responsibilities

• Support day-to-day planning and coordination of platform research programs, ensuring clear communication of next steps, deadlines, and needs to stakeholders.
• Build and maintain project timelines capturing milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
• Partner with scientific leads to align on scope, priorities, and progress.
• Define key milestones and decisive experiments and translate into actionable timelines.
• Coordinate cross-functional meetings, document decisions, and follow up on actions items.

Skills

Project management

Biologics research

ML/AI in biology

Cross-functional teamwork

Education

MS/PhD in life sciences or related

Tools

Excel

Smartsheet

MS Project

Asana

Google Suite

Job description

About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

About the Role

We are seeking a Project Manager to support Xaira’s high-priority Agentic AI Initiatives, including X-Cell, X-Design, and related programs. This role is well suited for a candidate with a strong scientific and software background who has experience with cross-functional project management in research settings, where ML/AI system and biologics R&D intersect. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience with ML model training and evaluation, agentic AI systems (tool use, orchestration, human in the loop review), software development, and biologics R&D, with the ability to manage timelines, track deliverables, and partner closely with scientific and technical leads to keep fast-moving programs on track.

This position emphasizes scientific and technical depth, coordination across ML, engineering, and scientific teams, and milestone tracking in an environment where playbooks are being defined and evolving rapidly. It is a strong fit for someone with a technical background at the interface of ML, software, and biology who is comfortable managing cross-functional projects and collections of project driving towards program objectives and milestones.

Key Responsibilities

• Project Planning and Execution
  • Support day-to-day planning and coordination of platform research programs, ensuring clear communication of next steps, expected deadlines, and needs to stakeholders.
  • Build and maintain project timelines that capture critical milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
  • Partner with scientific leads and functional stakeholders to align on scope, priorities, and progress.
• Milestone Management & Decision Support
  • Collaborate with scientific teams to define key project milestones, decisional experiments and translate into actionable, resource-information timelines.
  • Help compile project data, timelines, risks, and trade-offs to support informed decision-making.
  • Coordinate and facilitate planning and documentation of decisive experiments, and update project plans based on results and next steps.
• Cross-Functional Project Coordination
  • Facilitate cross-functional collaboration across research to ensure effective communication and documentation of decisions, alignment of priorities and timelines.
  • Schedule and run cross-functional meetings, ensuring clear agendas, effective documentation, and follow-up on action items.
  • Monitor interdependencies across functions and proactively identify, flag and resolve conflicts across workstreams.
• Operational Support & Project Monitoring
  • Track project status, risks, and mitigation strategies; provide updates to internal stakeholders.
  • Coordinate with functional leads to understand resource needs and potential impacts to timelines.
  • Contribute to scenario planning and contingency thinking for critical path activities.
  • Identify operational challenges and recommend improvements to enhance efficiency and coordination.
• Resource Coordination & Timeline Scenarios
  • Work closely with functional and team leads to understand resourcing needs, identify gaps and timeline impacts.
  • Develop scenario plans for critical path development decisions to support contingency and investment planning to address potential delays, bottlenecks, or shifts in scope.

Qualifications

• Advanced degree (MS, PhD, or equivalent) in life sciences, bioinformatics, computational biology or a related field strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 6+ years of industry experience, including hands-on biologics research with demonstrated project or timeline management responsibilities.
• Proven track record of managing research and/or technical programs.
• Working fluency in biologics research and ML research with hands-on experience a big plus.
• Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills; able to translate complex scientific ideas into clear plans.
• Excellent communication, time management collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience with basic project tracking tools (Excel, Smartsheet, MS Project, Asana, Google Suite, etc).
• Working familiarity with project and program management principles as defined by the Program Management Institute (PMI) or similar bodies. PMP, CAPM, or PMI-ACP certifications are a plus, but note hands‑on experience matters more than the credential itself.
• Please note that this position will be required to be on-site in the SSF office.

Preferred Attributes

• Comfortable managing projects in a fast‑paced, cross-functional environment.
• Hands‑on experience both with wet-lab and computational research. Experience with data generation for training large machine learning models in biology would be greatly preferred.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and influence diverse teams, both functionally and at different levels of seniority.
• Passion for science and dedication to improving patient outcomes through innovative biologics development.

Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. We offer a competitive package that includes base salary, bonus, and equity. The base pay range for this position is expected to be $148,000 - $185,000 annually; however, the base pay offered may vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.

Xaira Therapeutics an equal‑opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.

TO ALL RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: Xaira Therapeutics does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or employees. Xaira Therapeutics is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.