Senior Computational Biologist

Bioptimus is building the first universal AI foundation model for biology to fuel breakthrough discoveries and accelerate innovation in biomedicine. With more than $75M in funding, Bioptimus is a fast-growing start-up headquartered in Paris, incorporated in October 2023. Backed by leading international venture capitalists, our world-class team of scientists and engineers is redefining the frontiers of AI and life sciences. 

The Opportunity

We are looking for an industry experienced computational biologist to lead the evaluation and downstream applications of our foundational models. You will bring your ‘multi-lingual’ skills in biology and data sciences to provide crucial scientific direction to ensure we tackle the most important real-world problems in drug development and translational research. Working in our R&D team, you will also be closely collaborating with our Product and Business Development teams. This role can be located either in our Paris office or remote within Europe. Regular travel to Paris will be expected for team meetings.

What You'll Be Doing

As a Senior Computational Biologist, you will:

• Research & Innovation: Collaborate with our research team to identify, acquire and/or generate new datasets and data modalities to incorporate into our models. Help identify AI and foundation model approaches that can be integrated into the product. Contribute to publications, patents, and case studies showcasing novel applications in pharma R&D.
• Bridge Research & Product: Translate biopharma research questions into actionable machine learning objectives & tasks. Engage closely with product, business and research teams to define feature priorities.
• Thought Leadership: Represent Bioptimus at conferences, workshops, and in client meetings, demonstrating domain expertise and the potential of AI-driven drug development.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Serve as a trusted scientific partner during external technical discussions: design proof-of-concept studies, address domain-specific queries, and deliver high quality presentations that highlight the value of Bioptimus’ solutions. Provide ongoing training and support to partners on how to interpret and effectively apply our foundation models into R&D pipelines. Help unlock actionable insights in transcriptomics, proteomics, histology data, and beyond.

What You'll Bring

The successful candidate will have a ‘team-first’ attitude; be independent, curious, and detail-oriented; thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment; and be fun to work with. We value individuals who bring deep domain expertise in pharmaceutical R&D alongside strong hands-on computational skills.

• Computational Biology:
  • Extensive experience working with end-to-end genomics and multi-omics datasets (transcriptomics, single-cell, proteomics, imaging, etc..), from dataset generation & QC, to the analysis and interpretations of results.
  • Demonstrated expertise applying machine learning to computational biology, including scientific publications at high-impact journals (Nature, Science, Cell, Nucleic Acids Research, Genome Biology, …) and/or top conferences in the field (ISMB, RECOMB, NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, …).
  • Comfortable working in cloud computing environments and with version control systems
• BioPharma R&D Experience:
  • Deep understanding of biopharma R&D use-cases, challenges, tools and processes
  • Ability to break down high-level biopharma use-cases into actionable recommendations for the research & product team (ex: evaluation metrics, data annotations, specific loss function, etc…)
• Exceptional Communication Skills: Capable of engaging both technical and non-technical stakeholders. Adept at crafting compelling presentations and scientific narratives for high-level stakeholders and internal teams.
• Educational Background: PhD or equivalent experience in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, or related field.

How to stand out:

• Single Cell & Spatial Expertise: Extensive experience in computational biology research, in particular in single cell and spatial domains, applying AI/ML models in translational or clinical research.
• Publications & Thought Leadership: A track record of impactful contributions to computational biology, drug discovery & development, or foundation models.
• Project Leadership Experience: Demonstrated ability to manage complex projects, and deliver results in a fast-paced environment.
• Entrepreneurial Mindset: Experience in a startup or innovative env