Vice President of Life Sciences Experimentation

Lead Lila's Life Sciences Experimentation, setting scientific and operational vision for the wet-lab and managing a multidisciplinary team. You will build a new operating system for science, manage a portfolio of projects from commercial partnerships to foundational grand challenges, and play a critical role in achieving scientific superintelligence. Responsibilities include owning strategy, building AI-integrated wet-lab workflows, championing new experimental models, and cultivating a culture of scientific imagination and operational excellence.

Must Have

• Advanced degree in molecular biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, or related field
• 10+ years in Life Sciences R&D
• 5+ years leading multi-team experimental organizations
• Experience building and scaling multi-disciplinary wet-lab teams
• Hands-on experience with high-throughput or automated biology workflows
• Experience partnering with automation, data, and compute teams
• Fluency in project/portfolio management
• Exceptional leadership and communication skills

Good to Have

• Experience integrating agentic AI/ML-guided design with wet-lab loops
• Experience with transitioning in vitro research to in vivo studies
• Familiarity with stage-gate processes and transitioning ownership

Perks & Benefits

• Bonus potential
• Generous early equity

Your Impact at Lila

As the Lead of Life Sciences Experimentation you will set the scientific and operational vision for Lila’s wet-lab and manage a multidisciplinary team of experimentalists working at the frontier of all Life Science domains. You will work with world-renowned scientists and technologists to build a new operating system for science, enabling and exploiting scientific intelligence. You will manage a portfolio of projects spanning commercial partnerships to foundational grand challenges in the Life Sciences, requiring a combination of operational and scientific brilliance. As such, you will play a critical role in achieving our mission of scientific superintelligence to solve humankind's greatest challenges.

What You'll Be Building

• Own the strategy, portfolio, roadmap, and outcomes for the Life Science Experiment team
• Establish operating rhythms, capacity planning, and sequencing to execute against the strategy and roadmap
• Orchestrate a dynamic portfolio of programs that span grand scientific challenges and real-world applications, advancing the frontier of biological discovery
• Build and scale AI-integrated wet-lab workflows and ensure rigorous data capture and quality control across the Life Sciences, for example cDNA display, arrayed CFE, Octet/Dianthus analysis, plate QC, and developability screens.
• Champion new conceptual models for life science experimentation; transforming how assays, data, and design cycles are conceived, connected, and scaled
• Clarify and govern project/process management to realize scientific discover alongside scaled execution of the scientific method under AI guidance
• Partner with the Product and Commercial teams to identify high-value commercial opportunities that align with our path to scientific superintelligence
• Cultivate a culture of scientific imagination, operational excellence, and principled ambition in pursuit of transformative breakthroughs
• Hire, mentor, and develop exceptional experimental leaders; build an inclusive, high-ownership culture that scales with Lila’s ambition.

What You’ll Need to Succeed

• Advanced degree in molecular biology, biochemistry, bioengineering, or related field—or equivalent experience—plus 10+ years in Life Sciences R&D, including 5+ years leading multi-team experimental organizations in discovery/platform environments.
• Demonstrated ownership at scale: you have built and scaled multi-disciplinary wet-lab teams, instituted operating rhythms and standards, and delivered portfolio outcomes in ambiguous, fast-moving settings.
• Hands-on experience with high-throughput or automated biology workflows and the associated data analyses.
• Demonstrated experience partnering with automation, data and compute teams to industrialize methods, shorten cycles, and raise data quality
• Fluent in project/portfolio management (capacity planning, stage-gates, risk registers, resourcing)
• Exceptional leadership and communication skills; ability to set clear strategy, coach leaders, and align cross-functional teams around measurable objectives.

Bonus Points For

• Experience integrating agentic AI/ML-guided design with wet-lab loops and benchmarking AI-driven experimental campaigns.
• Experience with transitioning in vitro research to in vivo studies
• Familiarity with stage-gate processes and transitioning ownership between scientists and engineering to maximize velocity and accountability.