Senior Drug Discovery Scientist

About the role

You will architect and execute the experimental and computational workflows that power Axiom's agentic systems for predicting human drug outcomes. In this role, you will own the full lifecycle of high-stakes customer deliverables, translating complex biological questions into rigorous data generation plans and actionable insights. You will act as a primary interface between cutting-edge AI agents and the practical realities of drug discovery in large pharmaceutical organizations. Your work will directly shape how capital is allocated and how drugs are developed by ensuring our models reflect real-world biological complexity. You will drive the compounding loop where customer feedback refines data generation, which in turn trains more powerful models. This position requires a rare blend of scientific rigor, computational intuition, and business acumen to navigate multidisciplinary problem spaces. You will be a founding contributor to the standards and methodologies that replace traditional animal testing with human-relevant predictions.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Design and execute end-to-end experimental strategies that de-risk drug discovery programs through predictive agentic workflows.
• Own the quality and integrity of critical datasets from initial concept through production deployment, ensuring they meet the highest standards for machine learning.
• Translate ambiguous drug hunter requirements into precise scientific protocols and analytical frameworks that generate decisive go/no-go insights.
• Partner with AI research teams to co-develop novel model architectures that can reason over complex biological and chemical data landscapes.
• Deploy predictive agents directly into pharmaceutical discovery workflows, enabling rapid iteration on high-value compound programs.
• Lead independent analyses of proprietary data to uncover hidden patterns and drive methodological improvements across the platform.
• Optimize cycle times for customer insights by refining agentic harnesses and data pipelines without sacrificing scientific validity.
• Act as a domain expert in cross-functional sessions, bridging chemistry, biology, machine learning, and engineering perspectives.
• Build reusable frameworks that standardize how customer problems are translated into testable hypotheses and measurable outcomes.
• Mentor junior scientists and engineers on best practices for integrating experimental data with frontier AI systems.
• Define the technical roadmap for specific disease areas by identifying bottlenecks in current prediction methodologies.
• Represent Axiom in strategic discussions with pharmaceutical leadership, articulating the value of data-driven discovery.

Requirements

You must possess a PhD in a relevant life science discipline with a focus on drug discovery or translational research. You have a minimum of eight years of hands-on experience in industrial drug discovery roles within top-tier pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies. Your background must include direct responsibility for at least one successful drug candidate progressing from discovery through to clinical development. You demonstrate deep expertise in toxicology, specifically liver safety, and you have used human in vitro systems to predict clinical outcomes. You are proficient in Python and have built production-scale data analysis pipelines that handle complex biological datasets. You have published peer-reviewed research in top-tier journals that showcase your ability to connect molecular mechanisms to phenotypic outcomes. You have worked with machine learning practitioners to validate models against real-world biological data, ensuring robust performance in pre-clinical settings. You are comfortable operating in ambiguous environments where scientific hypotheses must be tested and refined rapidly. You communicate effectively with both technical and executive audiences, distilling complex findings into strategic recommendations. You have a track record of mentoring and collaborating across diverse scientific disciplines in fast-paced settings.

Nice to have

You have experience deploying agentic systems in a production environment and understand their limitations in scientific contexts. You have worked on replacing animal-based assays with human-relevant alternative methods in a regulatory context. You have collaborated with AI labs on publishing or patent filings related to predictive toxicology or drug discovery. You have experience managing budgets exceeding standard scientific scales for data generation and analysis. You have founded or co-founded a scientific venture that leverages data and AI for drug discovery.

Practical notes

This role is based in our San Francisco Global Headquarters and requires relocation to the Bay Area. Full-time engagement is required, with expectations for significant overlap with West Coast working hours. Travel may be required to partner sites, scientific conferences, and customer locations up to 20% of the time. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without sponsorship for this position. We seek individuals who thrive in fast-paced, mission-critical environments where scientific curiosity drives innovation.