PostEra (YC W20) Is Hiring AI Researchers for Drug Discovery

A remote machine learning research position at an AI-first biotech seeks a leader to build an “agentic science” research vertical that applies agentic systems, in-context learning, and foundation models to accelerate small-molecule drug discovery. The company uses its Proton platform to support medicinal chemistry and has internal programs in women’s health and fertility, multiple nominated clinical candidates, large pharma partnerships (including multi-year deals with Pfizer and Amgen), and leads a major NIH-funded antiviral center. The organization emphasizes a flat structure, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and rapid translation of models into scientific decisions.

The role requires designing and benchmarking agentic workflows that automate mechanistic modeling of biochemical and physiological processes and enable rapid adaptation to new assays, targets, and sparse tabular molecular data. Responsibilities span the full research loop: task definition, dataset/benchmark curation, model training and scaling, rigorous ablations, and deployment-ready research engineering, plus publication. Candidates need a PhD (or equivalent research track), strong ML theory and practice, publications/open-source contributions, hands-on PyTorch/JAX experience, and expertise in areas like few-shot/tabular/in-context learning or bioinformatics. Preferred experience includes training large models, tabular foundation models, co-scientist systems, and biological data modeling. Compensation is $200k-$300k plus 0.05-0.1% equity; visa sponsorship is not available.