Scientist II, Molecular Function (AI/Biology)

Location: Emeryville, California, United States; on-site. Applicants must have ongoing US work authorization without employer sponsorship; sponsorship will not be provided.

Salary: $155,000–$160,000 USD annually.

Company

hirify.global is an AI biology lab developing foundation models for biological molecules and solutions for medicine, agriculture, and related applications.

What you will do

• Establish and validate a yeast surface display platform for binder generation, including vector and strain selection, library design and construction, and FACS selection and sorting.
• Design and execute display campaigns for de novo miniproteins, VHHs, scFvs, and alternative scaffolds against diverse targets.
• Develop robust, repeatable workflows with defined controls, quality criteria, reproducibility measures, signal-to-noise analysis, and links between sort-bin enrichment and binding strength.
• Build NGS readouts and deep mutational scanning workflows that convert sequencing counts into quantitative binding metrics for ML models.
• Partner with ML and Protein Design scientists to define campaign scope, library composition, readouts, and model-ready binding data.
• Work with Bioinformatics on metadata schemas and data ingestion to maintain traceability from each dataset to its parent campaign.

Requirements

• PhD in Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Protein Engineering, Biophysics, Immunology, or a closely related field, plus 3+ years of relevant industry experience; level and compensation are commensurate with experience.
• Required deep hands-on yeast surface display experience, including library construction through homologous recombination or scaled electroporation, induction and expression optimization, and multi-round selection campaigns.
• Track record of generating and screening naive, immune, synthetic, or designed libraries for binder discovery or optimization.
• Strong flow cytometry and FACS expertise, including gating strategy, sort design, and data interpretation.
• Working knowledge of NGS screening workflows, display library sequencing, deep mutational scanning, or amplicon sequencing, including quantitative readout generation.
• Strong molecular biology skills in cloning, mutagenesis, and DNA assembly.
• Ability to define and maintain assay quality standards covering controls, reproducibility, and signal-to-noise.
• Solid understanding of protein engineering and developability, with the ability to collaborate across biology, biophysics, protein design, bioinformatics, and ML.

Nice to have

• Titration-based display and sequencing affinity measurement, such as Tite-Seq, or analogous recovery of K_D from pooled data.
• Display-based affinity maturation and binder engineering.
• Antibody characterization using Carterra SPR or Octet BLI, and protein expression or purification.
• Experiments designed to generate ML training data, including focused libraries, systematic mutagenesis, or library-on-library screens.
• Additional display platforms such as phage, mammalian, ribosome, or mRNA display.
• Lab automation with Hamilton or Tecan and LIMS/ELN systems such as Benchling.
• Experience establishing a new platform, transitioning it to routine execution, and training others to run it.
• Prior startup experience or comfort in fast-paced, ambiguous environments.

Culture & Benefits

• On-site role in Emeryville, California, with US employment eligibility verification required.
• Competitive compensation with equity participation.
• 401(k) with a strong employer match.
• Health, dental, and vision insurance, generous PTO, and a commitment to work-life balance.
• Professional development in the intersection of AI and biology.

Hiring process

• Applicants must maintain legal authorization to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship.
• All hires must verify identity and work eligibility and complete the required employment verification form.
• Unsolicited candidate submissions from staffing and search firms are not accepted without a signed agreement and active search request from the Talent team.