Principal AI Scientist (Polytope Bio)
Astera Institute · Remote · Remote ·
COMPENSATION
$250k – $350k
Listed on the employer's job board (Ashby)
- Principal level role
- Remote or NYC/SF
- RL + Generative Biology
- $250k-$350k base salary
- Co-founding potential
Polytope Bio is building a post-training engine that connects frontier AI models with high-throughput biology. As a Principal AI Scientist, you will shape the research direction and develop RL feedback loops using real-world biological measurements. This role offers significant compute resources and the potential for a co-founding leadership position in a future spinout.
What you'll do
- Partner with the founder to define scientific vision and technical execution
- Design RL post-training methods using high-throughput biological data as rewards
- Architect training infrastructure and debug model training loops hands-on
- Collaborate with experimental teams to align lab measurements with model learning
What you'll need
- PhD in ML, computational biology, or related field plus 2-5 years industry research
- Experience training models from scratch, including debugging and ownership of runs
- Hands-on work with generative diffusion models or transformer architectures
- Deep knowledge of modern reinforcement learning and preference-optimization methods
- Track record of shipped models, publications, or open-source contributions
Nice to have
- Familiarity with protein modeling, sequence models, or structural biology
- Experience scaling training infrastructure on large GPU clusters
- Previous team management or technical leadership experience
Stack
- Reinforcement Learning
- Generative Diffusion Models
- Transformers
- GPU Clusters
How you'll work
- Remote work possible for the right candidate
- Preference for co-location in NYC or SF Bay Area
- High-velocity startup environment within a foundation
What you get
- Base salary between $250,000 and $350,000
- Potential for co-founding leadership role in a spinout
- Access to significant compute resources and financial runway
- Comprehensive health, vision, dental, and retirement benefits
- Authorship of high-impact open-source datasets and models