Founding Scientist / Co-Founder

About the Role

This is a rare opportunity to join as a Founding Scientist / Co-Founder at an early-stage AI-for-biology startup based in Germany. This role sits at the intersection of wet-lab science and computational AI — you will help shape the company's scientific strategy, build core technology, and bridge hands-on experimental work with AI-driven workflows to accelerate biological discovery. Visa sponsorship is not available for this role.

What You'll Do

• Define and lead the scientific vision and research roadmap for early-stage AI + wet-lab products.

• Design and execute key molecular biology, biochemistry, or genomics experiments to validate models and assays.

• Collaborate closely with engineers and ML researchers to translate experimental needs into computational requirements.

• Implement and oversee lab automation and data pipelines to scale experiments and improve reproducibility.

• Prototype computational tools and analyses; contribute code or notebooks integrating wet-lab data with predictive models.

• Mentor and recruit early scientific hires; establish laboratory best practices and safety standards.

What We're Looking For

Required:

• Hands-on experience designing, executing, and interpreting molecular biology, biochemistry, or genomics experiments.

• Experience leading scientific teams, mentoring early-career scientists, and recruiting for scientific roles.

• Proficiency in programming for data analysis (e.g., Python) and fluency with notebooks for data-driven biology workflows.

• Experience designing and implementing data pipelines that integrate wet-lab data with computational models and analyses.

• Senior-level research background — PhD strongly preferred, or equivalent industry experience.

• Training or research experience at a leading research institution or university.

Nice to Have:

• Prior experience at AI-for-biology companies, biotech startups, or similar industry environments.

• Experience with ML applied to biological data.

• Hands-on experience with lab automation systems.

• Prior founder experience or direct experience scaling early-stage teams and operations.

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