Senior Molecular Modeling Chemist – Drug Discovery

Placements24; Willows (CA); On-site; USD 91,000 - 152,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive salary

Medical benefits

Retirement plan

Conference attendance

Career development

Job summary

Placements24 is seeking a Senior Computational Chemist to join our client’s R&D team in Welkom, Free State. You will apply advanced molecular modeling, docking, MD, and virtual screening to guide lead identification and optimization.

Collaborate with chemists, biologists, and pharmacologists to advance drug discovery from concept to early development. A PhD with 5+ years of industry experience and strong Python scripting are required.

Qualifications

• This role requires a Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry or related discipline.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in computational chemistry within pharma/biotech.
• Expertise in docking, virtual screening, pharmacophore modeling, and MD simulations.
• Proficiency with standard computational packages and scripting in Python.
• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Responsibilities

• Perform advanced molecular modeling to study protein-ligand interactions and predict binding affinities.
• Design and validate computational models to support lead identification and optimization.
• Collaborate with synthetic chemists to design novel molecules with feasible synthesis.
• Analyze complex data and communicate insights to project teams.
• Stay current with the latest methods in computational chemistry and drug discovery.

Skills

Molecular modeling

Docking

Virtual screening

Pharmacophore modeling

Molecular dynamics

Python

Education

PhD in Computational Chemistry or related

Tools

Schrödinger Suite

MOE

GROMACS

NAMD

Job description

Placements24 is seeking a Senior Computational Chemist to join our client’s R&D team in Welkom, Free State. You will apply advanced molecular modeling, docking, MD, and virtual screening to guide lead identification and optimization.

Collaborate with chemists, biologists, and pharmacologists to advance drug discovery from concept to early development. A PhD with 5+ years of industry experience and strong Python scripting are required.