Executive Director of Chemical Biology and Drug Design
Clinical-stage TechBio company using an AI-native platform, automated experiments, and proprietary biological and chemical data to discover and develop medicines.
Funding history
About Recursion
Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a public clinical-stage TechBio company headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. Its Recursion OS integrates biology, chemistry, clinical development, multimodal data, and purpose-built AI models.
Skills
Candidate Availability
Required and preferred rules are kept separate and reflect the wording in the original posting.
About the Role
You will set and lead chemical biology strategy that connects multiomics discovery with target identification and chemical probe design. You will manage internal and external chemistry teams, guide program decisions, collaborate across biology and computational drug design, and establish capabilities for modalities such as targeted protein degradation and molecular glues.
Requirements
- PhD in chemical biology, chemistry, or a related field
- 10+ years of relevant industry experience
- Demonstrated people leadership
- Hands-on experience designing chemical probes, including selective inhibitors, molecular glue degraders, PROTACs, covalent chemistry, activity-based chemistry, or photoaffinity chemistry
- Ability to deconvolute phenotypic hits to mechanism through chemoproteomics or equivalent target identification methods
- Experience building and scaling a chemical biology function
- Experience setting multi-year technical strategy for chemical libraries and probe portfolios
- Experience translating open biological questions into executable chemistry strategy
- Executive-level communication skills
- Experience managing chemists and cross-functional internal and external CRO project teams
Responsibilities
- Set chemical biology strategy based on the multiomics platform
- Link biological maps to targets using modern chemical biology methods
- Establish appropriate drug modalities alongside traditional small-molecule work
- Build, manage, and mentor a team of multiomics chemists
- Manage internal and external CRO chemistry teams and networks
- Execute screening, synthesis, and validation campaigns
- Partner with biology, target identification, structural biology, and computational drug design teams
- Define program strategy and go/no-go criteria with senior leadership
- Represent the team in portfolio reviews, governance meetings, and external technical discussions
- Contribute to intellectual property strategy and business development activities
Benefits
- Annual bonus
- Equity compensation
- Comprehensive benefits package