Founding Chemist-Engineer

We’re building a system that replaces a lab technician + physics + chemistry intuition with a single neural network. This is a rare role: someone who can operate like a strong SWE/MLE while also being a real synthetic chemist with biochemistry depth (proteins/peptides). You’ll work directly with the founders to connect model predictions to molecules we can actually make, generating the data loop that makes our models better over time.

We’re willing to pay a $15k referral bonus for an exceptional hire.

What You’ll Work On

• Own our data pipeline end-to-end: ingest data from lab/CROs/vendors/journals, enforce reproducible protocols + metadata standards, and maintain a central database that’s easy to query and iterate on.
• Make our generative / synthesis models chemistry-aware and tightly integrated with what we can actually make in the lab.
• Help design new peptides and small molecules and test them in the lab.
• Help build our automated synthetic chemistry + peptide synthesis lab from scratch, including vendor/CRO coordination and workflows that generate ML-useful data.

Requirements

• Strong SWE fundamentals: excellent Python, clean engineering habits, reproducible workflows, and comfort running and training ML models.
• Experience building data pipelines and datasets for ML (SQL).
• Synthetic chemistry experience including retrosynthesis and practical route planning.
• Solid biochemistry / molecular design foundation, with hands-on experience in peptide/protein synthesis and/or protein/peptide design, or strong small-molecule design experience.
• High ownership and speed in an ambiguous, fast-moving startup environment.

Nice to Have

• Experience designing automated synthetic chemistry labs.
• Deep ML research experience.
• Mandarin Chinese fluency (our lab will be built in China, and many of our CRO’s are Chinese)

What We Offer

• Work directly with both founders on core technical decisions.
• Ownership across models, data, and lab execution — the full loop.
• A mission that matters: safer, more targeted pest control through better science and better models.