Research Scientist, Applied Research
San Francisco, CAFull-timePosted todayStill listed today
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At a glance
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Job overview
Chai Discovery is hiring research scientists to improve the real-world performance of its foundation models for drug discovery. The work focuses on targeted data generation, model evaluation, and post-training methods, in close collaboration with pre-training researchers, research engineers, and the science team. The company values simple, robust approaches and researchers who can apply methods from other fields to biological problems.
Skills & qualifications
Skills
Qualifications
Full job description
About Chai Discovery Chai Discovery builds the computer-aided design suite for molecules. Eli Lilly, GSK, Pfizer, Bristol Myers Squibb, argenx and Novartis all use Chai to power drug discovery programs. AI is reinventing life sciences the same way it reinvented software engineering, and our team is building that future. We train frontier models that learn the underlying foundations of biochemical structure and interaction. We pair this with a computational workspace to iterate on molecules from idea to medicine, helping scientists move faster and develop medicines beyond the reach of existing methods. We value diverse perspectives and are ready to find greatness in unexpected places. About the role We are hiring research scientists to improve the real-world performance of our foundation models. The work involves planning targeted data generation campaigns, designing evals that accurately measure model performance, and formulating post-training recipes aimed at making models useful for real drug discovery problems. We prioritize simple, robust methods over intricate solutions built for narrow problems. We particularly value researchers who can formalize messy biological problems using methods from other fields. You will work in tight loops with our pre-training researchers, research engineers and science team. Your work will ship fast and you'll see your results reach real therapeutic programs across industry. About you We look for technical depth paired with interest in the underlying biology. Biological background is not required. All of the following are positive signals:
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Published research in machine learning for protein, antibody, or small-molecule modelling.
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Fluency in the technical details of protein language, structure prediction, and design models (AlphaFold, RFDiffusion, ProteinMPNN, ESM, etc).
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Strong quantitative background (CS, math, or physics), particularly in probability, statistics, and machine learning.
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Deep software engineering expertise, with experience working in large codebases.
We are happy to bet on rising talent. We offer The opportunity to work at the vanguard of AI research and frontier biology, with world-class people, on a mission that matters. We protect and promote a culture of high velocity and ownership. We compensate our team accordingly.
How this job compares
Set against the 2,170 open Research Scientist jobs on Olive Jobs, counted November 4, 2026.
- Pay
- This postingNot listed
- California median$183–273K/yr498 salary ranges
- US median$34–45/hr42 hourly ranges
- Openings
- Olive Jobs lists 723 open Research Scientist jobs in California and 2,170 across the US. 3% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
- Experience
- Research Scientist postings that state a minimum ask for 4 years of experience at the median; the middle half ask for 2 to 6 years (1,146 postings).
- Education
- 1,110 of the 2,170 open Research Scientist jobs (51%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.
Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on November 4, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.
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