Principal Scientist (Organoid Drug Discovery)

Location: On-site in San Francisco, CA, United States

Salary: $178K–$197K annually, plus equity

Company

hirify.global is building a human-first drug discovery platform using organoids, AI, and real human biology to improve translation from preclinical research to human outcomes.

What you will do

• Lead the scientific team at the San Francisco site, including hiring, management, scientific development, data review, and experimental strategy.
• Develop and mature organoid and cell-based assays, workflows, controls, reference data, and acceptance criteria for reliable platform execution.
• Translate early R&D assays into robust, repeatable, scalable processes and lead technology transfer into development and Technical Operations.
• Design characterization, optimization, comparability, troubleshooting, and variability-reduction strategies for complex biological workflows.
• Partner with R&D, Technical Operations, automation, hardware, software, data, and machine-learning teams to build observable and reproducible platform processes.
• Serve as scientific lead for external pharmaceutical and biotechnology programs from experimental design through data delivery.

Requirements

• Ph.D. in Immunology, Cell Biology, Biology, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology, or a related discipline, with typically 10–15 or more years of relevant experience developing complex biological assays, models, and platforms.
• Deep immunology expertise and hands-on experience with complex human in vitro models, organoids, primary immune cells, advanced mammalian cell culture, or similarly variable biological systems.
• Direct management of bench scientists, including setting scientific direction, conducting data reviews, and developing scientific judgment.
• Experience building biological systems from 0 to 1 and adapting them to automated or higher-throughput platforms.
• Experience with assay development, characterization, optimization, technology transfer, and translating early-stage R&D methods into robust workflows.
• Experience identifying and controlling biological and technical sources of variability in automated or high-throughput environments.
• Experience establishing controls, acceptance criteria, reference standards, or system-suitability approaches for biological assays.
• Experience leading technically complex investigations and hypothesis-driven experimental troubleshooting.
• Hands-on scientific leadership, systems thinking, comfort with ambiguity, and the ability to resolve competing technical interpretations while preserving productive disagreement.

Nice to have

• Experience building Process Development functions or technology-transfer frameworks in an early-stage biotechnology company.
• Experience with Design of Experiments, process characterization, capability analysis, or Quality by Design approaches.
• Experience working in regulated, quality-controlled, or highly documented scientific environments.
• Experience supporting pharmaceutical or biotechnology partners and translating external scientific questions into executable platform workflows.
• Experience partnering deeply with robotics, automation, software, data science, or machine-learning teams.
• Equivalent combinations of education and experience will also be considered.

Culture & Benefits

• On-site scientific work at the San Francisco location.
• Hands-on collaboration across scientific, Process Development, Technical Operations, automation, software, platform, and data teams.
• Mission focused on replacing animal models with scalable human biology and changing how medicines are discovered.
• Equity is included in the compensation package.
• hirify.global is an equal opportunity employer committed to an inclusive and respectful workplace.