Senior Scientist, Protein Ensemble Data & Visualization

Astera Institute; California; On-site; USD 220,000 - 260,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Lunch provided

AI tools licenses

403(b) retirement plan

Flexible PTO

Parental leave

Commuter benefits

FSAs

Visa sponsorship

Job summary

Astera Institute seeks a Senior Scientist, Structural Data Representation to lead how Prism’s conformational ensembles are encoded and stored. You’ll build databases, connect models to visualization pipelines, and partner with external communities to standardize ensemble data.

You will guide a small team, collaborate with internal groups, and work with open-source tools to ensure broad adoption and high-impact science. This is a hands-on leadership role based on-site in Emeryville, CA.

Qualifications

• PhD in a relevant area; at least 4 years of work experience.
• Experience leading scientists or engineers and shipping software used by others.
• Fluency in mmCIF and its extension mechanisms; strong data-standards communication.
• Execution-forward approach with a track record of delivering working versions.
• Nice to have: product development experience and building scientific databases or visualization tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a team of 2-3 scientists and software engineers toward broad adoption of Prism ensemble models.
• Set strategy with the Scientific Program Director and prioritize science within your team.
• Coordinate with modeling teams to ensure data representations meet downstream needs.
• Design, test, and deploy encoding models and schemas for conformational ensembles.
• Direct database development to connect ensemble models with visualization tools.
• Collaborate with external partners (PDB, tool developers) to bridge Prism work with the ecosystem.
• Work with open-source structural biology projects to enable native support for ensembles.

Skills

Team leadership

Coding

Technical communication

mmCIF knowledge

Execution mindset

Visualization tools

Scientific database design

Product development

Education

PhD in a relevant area

Job description

Astera Institute seeks a Senior Scientist, Structural Data Representation to lead how Prism’s conformational ensembles are encoded and stored. You’ll build databases, connect models to visualization pipelines, and partner with external communities to standardize ensemble data.

You will guide a small team, collaborate with internal groups, and work with open-source tools to ensure broad adoption and high-impact science. This is a hands-on leadership role based on-site in Emeryville, CA.