Computational Biologist (AI/ML)

About Verge Genomics

Technology has transformed every aspect of our lives. Yet, it still takes 12 years to develop a single drug because 90% of drugs fail in clinical trials, leaving hundreds of millions of patients without effective treatments. Accelerating the pace of bringing new, effective medicines to patients is one of the greatest opportunities for humanity.

Our mission is to develop better drugs, faster using artificial intelligence (AI) and human data. We have created a proprietary, all-in-human AI drug discovery engine, CONVERGE, which houses one of the field's largest and most comprehensive databases of multi-modal patient data sourced directly from human tissue. We use machine learning to map the complex causes of disease, discover new targets with a greater probability of success, and de-risk drug development.

We have delivered 2 new drugs from CONVERGE to clinical trials, discovered 282 new targets, and signed 2 commercial partnerships with Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca totaling $1.6B. We are a team of engineers, neuroscientists, and drug developers united around an audacious vision: to build the Genentech of the digital age.

About the role

Who We Are

Technology has transformed every aspect of our lives. Yet, it still takes 12 years to develop a single drug because 90% of drugs fail in clinical trials, leaving hundreds of millions of patients without effective treatments. Accelerating the pace of bringing new, effective medicines to patients is one of the greatest opportunities for humanity.

Our mission is to develop better drugs, faster using artificial intelligence (AI) and human data. We have created a proprietary, all-in-human AI drug discovery engine, CONVERGE, which houses one of the field's largest and most comprehensive databases of multi-modal patient data sourced directly from human tissue. We use machine learning to map the complex causes of disease, discover new targets with a greater probability of success, and de-risk drug development.

We have delivered 2 new drugs from CONVERGE to clinical trials, discovered 282 new targets, and signed 2 commercial partnerships with Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca totaling $1.6B. We are a team of engineers, neuroscientists, and drug developers united around an audacious vision: to build the Genentech of the digital age.

Your Mission

Reporting to the Head of Product & Engineering, and working alongside Verge's platform and computational biology teams, the Computational Biologist (AI/ML) will be responsible for defining and enabling new product offerings leveraging Verge’s drug discovery engine for internal stakeholders, external partners (across both pharma and AI), and customers.

Your 12 Month Outcomes

• Work with Verge’s AI partners to deliver a best-in-class biology foundation model with Verge's proprietary datasets
• Develop a novel approach that enables a powerful new product offering (patient stratification, biomarker discovery, etc.)
• Deliver at least two CONVERGE-powered insights projects to pharma/biotech companies
• Build an internal agentic AI workflow that supports multi-modal biomedical reasoning and orchestration

You Will

• Develop and evaluate cutting-edge computational methodologies integrating multi-omic datasets to develop predictive models for translational biology,
• Lead high-impact projects that apply and adapt AI models to translational challenges in disease biology, biomarker discovery, and target exploration,
• Lead partnerships with AI companies to co-develop next-generation foundation models for drug discovery
• Frame biological problems in computational terms and design solutions that are biologically meaningful, interpretable, and experimentally testable,
• Design and implement evaluation methodologies for assessing AI model capabilities relevant to biological research and applications,
• Translate between biological domain knowledge and machine learning objectives.

Requirements

Candidates must have :

• Either:
• ≥5 years of experience working in applied computational biology and integration of multi-omic datasets (RNA-seq, genotyping, clinical), with ≥2 years in a startup environment,
• Or:
• ≥2 years of experience in relevant areas of translational science , demonstrating a deep understanding of target identification, biomarker discovery, and/or patient stratification,
• Proven ability to implement, evaluate, and/or create computational methodologies that leverage machine learning, statistics, and AI for biological research and discovery,
• Fluency with state of the art in systems biology workflows, including off-the-shelf biological databases and computational biology tools,
• Track record of bridging biological domain knowledge with computational approaches to solve real scientific problems
• Track record of individual innovation, with published research or shipped work influencing pharma R&D decisions
• Experience running a significant number of end-to-end RNA-Seq data analyses (from QC, read quantification, normalization through to interpretation),
• Excellent coding skills in Python, with experience in relevant ML/AI libraries (e.g., PyTorch, HuggingFace, scikit-learn, pandas, numpy). A demonstrable portfolio (e.g., GitHub, research code, or shared notebooks) is highly preferred,
• Experience in building and evaluating machine learning models on biological data , ideally with transformer-based models (e.g., scGPT, Geneformer, ESM, ProtBERT), with a deep understanding of feature selection, model interpretability,
• Professional experience with AI workflows, including natural language processing (NLP), retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), embeddings, vectorization of diverse data types, and working with large language models (e.g., GPT),
• Demonstrated experience with model evaluation and experimental design in a scientific context, including setting up appropriate benchmarks and controls.

Finally, we seek candidates who embrace our values and way of working:

• Ability to thrive in uncertainty with frequently changing priorities
• Deep alignment withour values
• A passion for making an impact on patients