Principal Scientist, Antibody Discovery and Engineering (Biotechnology)

Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. The role follows a 70/30 work model with 70% in-office collaboration. Only U.S. persons are eligible due to U.S. export control requirements; non-U.S. visa sponsorship is unavailable.

Salary: $142,500–$256,500 annually, with potential discretionary bonus, incentive compensation, or equity.

Company

hirify.global develops mRNA-based therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, and cardiovascular diseases.

What you will do

• Lead integrated antibody discovery and engineering campaigns from concept through lead identification, optimization, and nomination.
• Develop strategies covering target and antigen evaluation, immunization, B cell discovery, display-based engineering, sequence analysis, and data-driven lead selection.
• Design and oversee antibody generation workflows, including immunization, single-cell discovery, affinity maturation, humanization, format conversion, expression, purification, and characterization.
• Engineer and evaluate IgG, Fab, scFv, bispecific, multispecific, T cell engager, TCR engager, and CAR-T-related formats.
• Assess binding, affinity, specificity, epitope diversity, developability, potency, and mechanism of action through biochemical, biophysical, and functional assays.
• Partner with research leaders, project teams, computational and structural biology groups, and external CROs while mentoring scientists and communicating recommendations to leadership.

Requirements

• PhD in immunology, molecular biology, biochemistry, protein engineering, cancer biology, or a related discipline, plus 5+ years of relevant post-PhD industry experience.
• Track record of independently leading therapeutic antibody discovery campaigns through lead identification, optimization, or nomination.
• Hands-on expertise in immunization-based discovery, antigen design, B cell screening, single-cell sorting, sequence recovery, and NGS-informed repertoire analysis.
• Strong molecular biology, antibody engineering, display technology, cloning, library construction, expression, purification, and analytical characterization skills.
• Experience with affinity, epitope binning, competition, specificity, developability, ELISA, MSD, flow cytometry, Biacore, Carterra, Octet, or related assays.
• Must qualify as a U.S. person under U.S. export control laws; non-U.S. persons cannot be sponsored for an export control license.

Nice to have

• 7+ years of hands-on antibody discovery and engineering experience, including yeast or mammalian display.
• Experience with T cell engagers, TCR engagers, bispecific or multispecific antibodies, ADCs, CAR-T, or CAR-NK approaches.
• Experience in oncology, autoimmune, infectious disease, immune-cell biology, primary-cell assays, or functional immunology.
• Familiarity with bioinformatics, structural modeling, AI/ML-enabled discovery tools, or developability prediction platforms.

Culture & Benefits

• In-person collaboration within a fast-paced, innovative, and cross-functional research environment.
• Healthcare and voluntary benefit programs, plus fitness, mindfulness, and mental health resources.
• Family planning support, including fertility, adoption, and surrogacy benefits.
• Paid vacation, volunteer days, sabbatical, global recharge days, and discretionary year-end shutdown.
• Savings and investment programs, with location-specific perks and extras.