Technical Chief of Staff (to the CTO)

About Apheris

At Apheris, we are building the future of how AI is applied in pharmaceutical R&D.

We enable leading pharmaceutical teams to discover and develop drugs faster. We host the industry’s largest federated data networks for drug discovery AI, spanning co-folding, ADMET, and antibody developability.

Across these networks, models are trained on proprietary industry datasets to achieve higher performance and broader applicability while keeping data control and IP protected. We deliver these superior models through drug discovery applications that enable teams to run them at scale, further customize them, and integrate them into existing R&D workflows. 

• AI Structural Biology (AISB) Network: Eight top-20 pharma companies collaborate in the field of co-folding, structure-based binding affinity predictions and antibody design.
• ADMET Network: Five top-50 pharma and biotechs collaborate to improve small-molecule property prediction and expand to further drug modalities (e.g., PROTACs).
• Antibody Developability Network: Pharma partners collaborate to federate historical and purpose-built antibody developability datasets for secure ML training, without data leaving each partner’s environment.

About the role

We are hiring a Technical Chief of Staff to the CTO to act as a force multiplier for our technical and product organization. This is a hands-on, execution-focused role at the center of product development, customer engagement, and cross-functional delivery. You will work directly with the CTO to ensure technical priorities translate into high-quality customer outcomes, clear internal execution, and reduced iteration overhead.

You will serve as the CTO’s proxy across customer preparation, technical follow-ups, and internal coordination. You will operate with significant autonomy and discretion from day one. You will be expected to anticipate issues, surface trade-offs, and keep the organization focused and moving at pace. This role is designed for someone with a strong technical foundation who thrives in fast-paced environments, enjoys turning ambiguity into concrete outputs, and is comfortable operating in front of customers. 

What you will do

• Enable technical leadership and execution
  1. Act as a force multiplier for the CTO by translating priorities and expectations into concrete actions, deliverables, and timelines.
  2. Reduce iteration overhead by working with owners across engineering and product teams to clarify next steps, raise quality, and ensure outputs meet expectations before CTO review.
  3. Proactively identify where work is getting stuck and drive progress through structured proposals, clear scoping, and follow-through.
• Customer preparation and engagement
  1. Own preparation for technical customer meetings, including:
     • Understanding end-to-end technical stacks and (machine learning) workflows.
     • Creating clear, compelling customer-facing narratives and presentations.
     • Coordinating inputs across teams.
  2. Ensure strong follow-ups after customer meetings:
     • Coordinate internal ownership and track execution.
     • Prepare materials and agendas for subsequent sessions.
  3. As soon as possible: be able to run technical customer meetings, bringing in subject-matter experts as needed and ensuring high-quality outcomes.
• Drive cross-functional outcomes
  1. Keep cross-functional product and engineering initiatives moving by:
     • Clarifying goals and expected outputs.
     • Helping owners break down complex tasks into actionable steps.
     • Proposing initial drafts (e.g., architecture diagrams, workflows, or outlines) to accelerate feedback and decision-making.
  2. Support process improvements that increase execution speed and clarity, while respecting clear ownership boundaries.
• Drive technical scoping and enhance product communication across teams
  1. Enable teams through shared frameworks, templates, and best practices to improve alignment, speed, and quality across technical and product work.
  2. Contribute to customer-facing materials, proposals, and internal documents to raise overall quality.
  3. Translate high-level feedback into concrete improvements in preparation, narrative, and execution.
• Strategic and ad-hoc initiatives
  1. Support early scoping of new opportunities or special projects by
     • Structuring initial workflows and technical approaches.
     • Coordinating early inputs from product, engineering, and computational drug discovery.

You will operate as an execution partner and force-multiplier, ensuring the right things happen quickly and to a high standard.

What we expect from you

• Strong technical background (e.g. computer science, engineering, sciences, or related field) with the ability to understand and communicate complex systems end-to-end, across infrastructure, ML models, data flows, and product workflows.
• 2-7+ years of experience in fast-paced, high-output environments such as strategy consulting (e.g., MBB), venture capital, or high-growth startups or scaleups.
• Ability to build a solid working understanding of the full technical stack and communicate effectively with infrastructure engineers, ML engineers, scientists, and product managers.
• Strong capability to distill complex and fragmented technical input into clear summaries, structured options, and decision-ready recommendations for leadership and customers.
• Comfort operating across levels of abstraction, from high-level system architecture and workflows to concrete implementation approaches and technical assumptions.
• Ability to operate with ambiguity, proactively propose initial solutions, and use structured drafts (e.g. architecture diagrams, workflows, outlines) to accelerate alignment and progress.
• Strong proficiency in core tools, including Atlassian suite, PowerPoint, product prototyping tools like Lovable/Bolt and ability to build high-quality materials fast, using modern AI and productivity tools.
• Excellent execution skills, organization, and attention to detail, with a strong ownership mindset and focus on outcomes rather than tasks. 
• High ownership mindset; you take responsibility for outcomes, not just tasks.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with confidence in customer-facing settings. English: C2 level; German optional.
• Comfort working in a remote-first environment across distributed teams.
• Curiosity and willingness to learn about AI-driven drug discovery, the broader life sciences ecosystem, and Apheris’ customers.

Nice to have

• Prior experience working with AI/ML systems, distributed systems, or data-intensive platforms.
• Exposure to life sciences, pharmaceutical R&D, or scientific software products.
• Experience improving internal execution through better tooling, templates, or lightweight processes.

What we offer you

• Industry-competitive compensation, including early-stage virtual share options
• Remote-first working – work where you work best, whether from home or a co-working space near you
• Great suite of benefits, including a wellbeing budget, mental health benefits, a work-from-home budget, a co-working stipend and a learning and development budget
• Generous holiday allowance
• Office Days at our Berlin HQ or a different European location (3x a year)
• A fun, diverse team of mission-driven individuals with experience across leading organizations (e.g., MBB, Palantir, NVIDIA, top pharma) and a drive to see AI and ML used for good
• High exposure to core strategic and technical topics, significant ownership from day one, and plenty of room to grow personally and professionally while shaping your own role