Executive Director, Chemical Biology (AI)

Location: Salt Lake City, Utah; candidates may be local or interested in moving to Salt Lake City, and employees are expected to work in the office at least 50% of the time. Remote Opportunity - United States is also listed.

Annual base salary: $237,600–$284,900, plus annual bonus, equity compensation, and benefits.

Company

hirify.global is a clinical-stage TechBio company using an AI-native drug discovery and development platform to advance investigational medicines across oncology, rare disease, neuroscience, immunology, and other therapeutic areas.

What you will do

• Set chemical biology strategy connecting proprietary multiomic maps of biology to target identification and establish suitable modalities, including degraders, molecular glues, and traditional small molecules.
• Build, manage, mentor, and scale a team of multiomics chemists in a coaching-driven environment.
• Establish and manage internal and external CRO chemistry teams and networks for screening, synthesis, and validation campaigns.
• Partner with biology, target identification, structural biology, computational drug design, data science, and platform teams to translate target and ligand insights into potent, selective, developable chemical matter.
• Define program strategy and go/no-go criteria with senior leadership, represent chemical biology in portfolio governance, and lead technical discussions with collaborators and partners.
• Contribute to IP strategy and business development related to novel chemical matter and emerging modalities.

Requirements

• PhD in chemical biology, chemistry, or a related field, plus 10+ years of relevant industry experience and demonstrated people leadership.
• Deep hands-on experience designing chemical probes, including selective inhibitors, molecular glue degraders, PROTACs, covalent chemistry, activity-based chemistry, or photoaffinity chemistry.
• Experience deconvoluting phenotypic hits to mechanism through chemoproteomics or equivalent target identification methods.
• Track record of building and scaling chemical biology functions, including hiring, mentoring, and developing multiple scientists and managers.
• Experience setting multi-year technical strategy, such as chemical library architecture and probe portfolio direction, rather than executing a single program plan.
• Ability to translate open biological questions into executable chemistry strategy in highly ambiguous environments.
• Executive-level communication skills, including representing chemical biology strategy to C-suite and board audiences and influencing senior cross-functional leaders.
• Experience managing, mentoring, or leading chemists and cross-functional project teams, including internal and external CRO teams.

Nice to have

• Experience with phenomics, high-content imaging such as Cell Painting, or other image-based screening platforms.
• Familiarity with using AI/ML-derived phenotypic signatures for compound prioritization or target nomination.
• External scientific visibility through publications, conference leadership, or partner and business-development-facing technical credibility.
• Experience contributing to IP strategy or licensing diligence involving novel chemical matter.

Culture & Benefits

• Values bold, ethical, and accountable decision-making.
• Promotes direct engagement, active learning, rapid adaptation, and urgency focused on patient impact.
• Encourages cross-functional collaboration across biology, chemistry, computational design, data science, and platform technology.
• Offers annual bonus eligibility, equity compensation, and a comprehensive benefits package.
• Provides workplace accommodations on request during the selection process.