[Remote] Technical Lead - Structural Biology Networks

Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Apheris is pioneering the application of AI in pharmaceutical R&D, focusing on enhancing drug discovery processes. The Technical Lead will oversee AI Structural Biology model programs, ensuring the delivery of high-quality models while mentoring teams and managing technical challenges.

Responsibilities

• Lead the teams building and delivering federated co-folding models, staying hands-on across modeling, architecture, evaluation, and engineering execution
• Build and implement ML applications in structural biology, particularly around fine-tuning and extending foundational models like OpenFold, Boltz-2 and ESMFold. Own delivery of these against committed milestones and ensure high-quality model releases ship on time
• Translate ambiguous scientific and technical goals into clear plans, priorities, workstreams, and decisions. Guide evaluation decisions and build on them to deliver results packages to external stakeholders
• Surface risks, blockers, bugs, timeline changes, and technical trade-offs early, with clear recommendations
• Align consortium members on objectives, evaluation criteria, data requirements, timelines, and delivery expectations
• Work with product, engineering, research, and leadership to ensure application requirements shape the model roadmap

Skills

• You have a PhD, MSc, or equivalent experience in a relevant field, plus 5+ years applying ML to complex scientific or biological problems, ideally in structural biology, protein modeling, co-folding, or binding prediction
• You have hands-on experience with modern ML systems in Python and PyTorch, and have worked with or extended large-scale models such as OpenFold, AlphaFold, Boltz, ESM, or similar
• You have MLOps or ML infrastructure experience, particularly with Kubernetes-based training, evaluation, or deployment workflows
• You can define success criteria, validate model quality, and ensure ML releases are robust enough for real-world use
• You have led delivery of complex ML projects, including setting technical direction, managing risks and dependencies, and driving teams toward high-quality releases
• You are comfortable operating as a player-coach: mentoring engineers and ML scientists while contributing directly to modeling, experimentation, or architecture when needed
• You can work effectively with product, research, leadership, customers, and scientific stakeholders to turn ambiguous requirements into clear technical plans
• You have experience with federated learning, privacy-preserving ML, distributed training, or other multi-party training environments
• You have experience with Go or other systems programming languages
• You have worked on production-grade model delivery in regulated, enterprise, pharmaceutical, biotech, or other high-trust environments
• You have a publication record in top-tier ML, computational biology, or structural biology venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ISMB, RECOMB, or similar

Benefits

• Industry-competitive compensation, including early-stage virtual share options
• Remote-first working – work where you work best
• Wellbeing budget, mental health support, work-from-home budget, co-working stipend, and learning budget
• Generous holiday allowance
• Office Days at our Berlin HQ or a different European location (3x per year)
• A high-calibre, execution-focused team with experience from leading organizations

Company Overview