Senior Director, Disease Biology (Alzheimer's Disease)

Location: Palo Alto, California; onsite at least four days per week

Salary: $263,500–$325,500 base salary per year, plus eligibility for an annual discretionary bonus.

Company

hirify.global is an independent nonprofit research organization combining artificial intelligence and biology to accelerate scientific progress and understand the causes of complex diseases.

What you will do

• Build and lead a new team advancing validated targets through drug discovery and preclinical programs.
• Guide lead optimization, candidate prioritization, and in vitro and in vivo proof-of-concept studies.
• Lead target discovery for the Alzheimer's Disease Initiative using disease biology, human genetics, functional genomics, and disease mapping.
• Direct existing in vivo and advanced cellular model teams focused on target identification and validation.
• Partner with computational biology and machine learning teams to apply causal modeling and patient data to target prioritization.
• Manage CRO and external partner relationships and represent discovery and preclinical strategy in portfolio decisions.

Requirements

• PhD in neuroscience, immunology, cell biology, genetics, pharmacology, or a related field.
• Extensive experience leading target discovery in neurodegeneration from disease biology and human genetics through target validation.
• Experience advancing programs through lead optimization, in vivo proof of concept, and IND-enabling studies, including toxicology and pharmacokinetics capabilities.
• Deep expertise developing or applying advanced 3D cellular models of neurodegenerative disease.
• Proven experience building and mentoring scientific teams and leading matrixed, cross-functional programs.
• Ability to work onsite in the Palo Alto office a minimum of four days per week.

Nice to have

• Direct experience in Alzheimer's disease drug discovery.
• Experience generating and validating Alzheimer's animal models, including APOE4 and TREM2 genetic risk variant models.
• Experience integrating computational and machine learning-driven target prioritization into discovery strategy.
• Experience partnering with high-throughput biology teams.

Culture & Benefits

• Long-term funding and industry-like resources without commercial pressure.
• Collaboration among biologists, functional genomics scientists, machine learning researchers, and technology developers.
• Opportunity to pursue high-risk, long-term research focused on transformative disease interventions.
• Annual discretionary bonus eligibility in addition to base compensation.