Scientist, Machine Learning

The Company

Flagship Labs 97, Inc. (FL97) is privately held, early-stage biotechnology pioneering the application of autonomous science to biology. At FL97 we recognize the potential for artificial intelligence to transform all aspects of the scientific method.

FL97 is backed by Flagship Pioneering, which brings the courage, long-term vision, and resources needed to realize unreasonable results.

The Role

FL97 is seeking an experienced, creative, and talented Machine Learning Scientist to join our team. You will be part of an agile, cross-functional team responsible for building the autonomous synthetic biology platform and executing closed-loop product discovery campaigns. Together with biologists, machine learning engineers, software developers, and automation engineers, you will work toward building and automating AI-driven molecular biology and microbial production processes across a variety of valuable applications. The ideal candidate brings expertise in training large language models, reinforcement learning, and optimization, with a proven track record of building machine learning models at scale in a cloud environment. A background in biochemistry, molecular biology, or cellular biology is a plus.

Key Outcomes:

• Build and scale large language models over corpus of published scientific manuscripts and experimental data
• Optimize biological assay parameters and improve experimental objectives
• Contribute to a digital platform that can continually finetune models as more data becomes available
• Build a small, diverse, project-based team that can flexibly react to new information within an agile framework
• Continually cultivate scientific/technical expertise through critical review of the ML literature, attending conferences, and developing relationships with key opinion leaders.
• Foster a collaborative, creative, and rigorous culture of scientific discovery.

Required skills

• PhD in applied mathematics, computer science and other quantitative disciplines with a strong focus in machine learning
• Proven track record of research and innovation in machine learning.
• Hands-on experience in implementing, evaluating and hyperparameter tuning of deep learning models at scale.
• Experience with large language models (e.g. BERT and its variants, GPT2 or other autoregressive LLMs)
• Strong expertise in at least one ML framework (PyTorch/TensorFlow/Jax) and robust experience in the Python data science ecosystem (Numpy, SciPy, Pandas etc.)
• Experience using a cloud computing service (AWS/GCP/Azure) reduce runtime to train and evaluate deep learning models
• Strong written and oral communication skills

Preferred skills

• Experience with reinforcement learning (PPO, TRPO, etc.)
• Experience with Bayesian optimization
• Strong expertise in PyTorch
• Experience using AWS services such as S3, EC2, ECS, and Sagemaker
• Foundational understanding of biology and chemistry

Working at FL97, you would have access to advanced technology in the areas of:

• AI experimental design and simulation
• Automated liquid handling
• Fully digital lab workflows

Location: Cambridge, MA

More About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life science platform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $100 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $3.1 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises  transformative companies, including  Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Generate Biomedicines, Tessera Tx, and others.

Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. 

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, “FSP”) do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.