Senior Lead Scientist (Biochemistry)

Location: On-site in Palo Alto, California, USA

Salary: $159,467–$227,810 per year

Company

hirify.global develops sustainable solutions across flavors, fragrances, food ingredients, health, and biosciences, including enzyme technologies for healthcare, food, consumer, and industrial markets.

What you will do

• Lead research programs in enzyme engineering, catalysis, protein chemistry, and biochemical mechanisms.
• Develop kinetic and thermodynamic models to explain enzyme performance and guide protein engineering decisions.
• Investigate enzyme interactions with carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, plant-derived materials, fermentation broths, and other industrial substrates.
• Develop, validate, and deploy biochemical, enzymatic, and analytical assays, including high-throughput and medium-throughput workflows.
• Lead the implementation and interpretation of LC-MS/MS, HPLC/UPLC, GC-MS, spectroscopy, chromatographic, and biophysical characterization methods.
• Partner with protein engineering, microbial engineering, fermentation, applications, bioinformatics, and computational teams while mentoring scientists and supporting technology transfer and scale-up.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Chemistry, Chemical Biology, Enzymology, Analytical Chemistry, or a related discipline.
• Typically 10 or more years of relevant industrial or postdoctoral experience in biochemistry, enzymology, analytical chemistry, industrial biotechnology, or a related field.
• Expertise in enzyme characterization, protein chemistry, mechanistic biochemistry, enzyme kinetics, reaction mechanisms, binding interactions, thermodynamics, and quantitative data analysis.
• Experience developing, validating, and implementing biochemical, enzymatic, and analytical assays.
• Hands-on experience interpreting advanced analytical data for proteins, metabolites, reaction products, and complex mixtures.
• Scientific leadership experience in multidisciplinary research environments, demonstrated through publications, patents, or technical innovation.

Nice to have

• Expertise in carbohydrate-active enzymes, protein engineering, industrial biotechnology, or biocatalysis.
• Experience with mass spectrometry, structural biology, computational modeling, or biophysical characterization.
• Experience leading research through technology development, commercialization, or product launch.

Culture & Benefits

• Opportunity to shape enzyme discovery and development for the Grain business.
• Collaboration with multidisciplinary experts across scientific and engineering functions.
• Influence over technology development from early concepts through scale-up and potential commercialization.
• Opportunities to contribute to patents, publications, external collaborations, and scientific conferences.
• Inclusive workplace focused on diverse perspectives and authentic participation.