Interested in working at the intersection of biology and AI? Inceptive is a start-up of 40+ AI researchers, biologists, and engineers on a mission to apply generative AI to the most impactful problems in drug design. Our team is deeply antedisciplinary, combining AI experts who have made foundational contributions to language, vision, and robotics, with translational and high-throughput biologists. We work together to train and fine-tune foundation models of life to design breakthrough sequence-based medicines.

We are looking for highly motivated and passionate individuals interested in applied research at the interface of biology and computation who have

• 1+ year experience with hands-on wet-lab research
• deep curiosity about how AI can allow us to go beyond traditional biology paradigms
• coding fundamentals (ML experience helps but isn’t required)

Interns would work with a small team of biologists and AI researchers on a focused project and gain exposure to ongoing research and development at Inceptive. This is a paid, full-time, fully on-site internship at our lab in Palo Alto. If this sounds like a good match, please apply!

We’re looking forward to meet you!

Compensation for this internship will be based on an annual salary of $108,000

At Inceptive, you will help pioneer the next generation of AI-designed drugs, with the potential to positively impact billions of people, as part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team.

Training on natural and experimentally-derived data is a core aspect of how our AI models learn to generate therapeutic molecules with exceptional properties. We invest deeply in building and scaling data sources to train and evaluate our models for maximal performance. At the same time, careful validation in orthogonal, translationally-relevant assays is crucial to orient our models.

We are seeking a senior scientific leader versed in high-throughput and translational biology to drive the continued growth and impact of our Palo Alto Lab. You will be a force multiplier for our scientists and engineers, ensuring a high standard of scientific rigor and output in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. You will also interface closely with our AI team to maximize the impact of internal data on Inceptive’s foundation models.

Your Mission, should you choose to accept it

• Lead development and scale-up of high-throughput assays across in vitro, cellular, and in vivo systems, leveraging multiplexed assays and laboratory automation
• Define and execute a lab strategy aligned with Inceptive’s therapeutic and platform priorities, while remaining flexible as modality and partnership needs evolve
• Champion an antedisciplinary culture, encouraging curiosity, rigor, and collaboration across scientific boundaries
• Manage, mentor, and develop a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers that rapidly generates high-impact biological data to improve and validate AI design models
• Oversee the development of industry-standard validation assays to keep models and data generation aligned with downstream therapeutic application

Qualifications

• PhD and 6+ years of post-PhD experience in industrial research applied to drug development
• Experience managing and mentoring a data-driven lab of 10+ scientists
• Experience using high-throughput and/or highly multiplexed assays to generate rich datasets from mammalian cells
• Proven ability to set scientific direction while also executing operationally
• Deep understanding of theory, techniques, and experimental design in molecular and cellular biology
• Visualization, analysis, and statistics applied to complex biological datasets
• Availability to work with team members across US and Europe, with meetings starting at 7am PT
• Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
• We value in-person collaboration and expect candidates to work at our lab location

Preferred skills

• Translational experience with mRNA, oligonucleotides, or other genetic medicines
• Expertise in immunology and/or cell therapy
• Hands-on experience in RNA biology and biochemistry
• Scientific programming in Python
• Hands-on experience with modern data engineering workflows

Compensation

$245K – $305K + Bonus + Equity

At Inceptive, you will drive forward development that could help billions of people. To accomplish this, you will be part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team building our biological software.

The design space of biomolecules is unimaginably vast — far beyond what can be explored experimentally. Yet within this space lie molecules with properties essential for new medicines. Our machine learning models learn to design therapeutic biomolecules with specific, desirable functions.

We advance the state of the art in molecular design by training large-scale foundation models and developing cutting edge generative approaches. The models learn from diverse heterogeneous datasets and are refined through focused fine-tuning and feedback from experiments. Key to progress is a team that combines exceptional machine learning expertise with thorough domain understanding.

You will collaborate closely with other machine learning researchers and engineers, as well as computational and experimental biologists, to advance these models and translate their capabilities into real therapeutic designs.

Your Mission, should you choose to accept it

• Embody our vision of an antedisciplinary environment and embrace learning about areas outside of your traditional area of expertise
• Develop, implement, train, and iteratively improve state-of-the-art models for biomolecule design
• Analyze, visualize, and communicate results to support team efforts in improving models and data
• Create, deploy, and refine tools for efficient, reliable machine learning experimentation and production
• Work with biologists to collect data for the training and evaluation of generative models of biomolecules
• Provide mentorship and technical direction to team members as appropriate

Qualifications

• 3+ years of hands-on experience developing ML models
• Demonstrated track record of implementing, training, improving advanced machine learning models
• Highly capable programmer fluent in Python ecosystem and PyTorch or similar deep learning framework
• Availability to work with team members across US and Europe, with meetings starting at 8am PT and ending at 7pm CET
• Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
• We value the benefits of in-person collaboration and expect candidates to primarily work from our office locations

Preferred technical skills

• PhD in AI/ML, computer science, computational biology, physics, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience (e.g., industry experience, research, or advanced technical expertise)
• Strong skills in designing, executing, and documenting machine learning experiments
• Practical experience with modern generative models
• Strong software engineering skills, in particular for data processing, evaluation of ML models, compute cluster orchestration
• Experience with large-scale model training, foundation models, model parallelism, multi-node training
• Experience with bio sequence data and datasets — various genomic and protein data, sequencing, functional assays, etc
• Knowledge of biochemistry, molecular/cell biology, and drug development

Compensation

$200K – $275K + Bonus + Equity

At Inceptive, you will drive development forward that could help billions of people. To accomplish this, you will be part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team building our biological software.

We are looking for an exceptional and motivated individual to join our business development team.

You will be joining a dynamic and agile team, set to execute on our mission and capitalize on scientific, business, and strategic opportunities. We are seeking a Business Development professional to help identify, structure, and execute strategic partnerships. This role sits at the intersection of science, strategy, and dealmaking, and will work closely with leadership, scientists, and external partners.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it

• Embody our vision of an antedisciplinary environment and embrace learning about areas outside of your traditional area of expertise
• Identify and source new business opportunities with biotech and pharma through market research, networking, and by building business relationships to expand Inceptive’s network
• Lead outbound BD efforts, including prospecting, relationship building, and pipeline management
• Support deal execution (term sheets, negotiations, diligence, closing)
• Collaborate with scientific and technical teams to translate platform capabilities into partner value
• Conduct market analysis and competitive intelligence to inform BD strategy
• Prepare documents and presentations to senior management to help drive decision-making through the deal process
• Travel to industry events, scientific or business oriented

Qualifications

• Masters in science (PhD preferred), ideally with a background in biologics, genetic medicines, or deep learning methods applied to drug development
• 3 years of experience in business development in pharma, biotech or VC
• Proven ability to work in a fast pace environment as part of a team, apprehend business concepts relevant to biotech or techbio, and manage multiple projects effectively
• Track record of collaboratively partnering with internal technical stakeholders
• Deep understanding of the drug discovery and the development and commercialization process (understanding of computational biology a plus)
• Good business instincts and fluency with business analytics and deal valuation methodologies
• Ability to engage both scientific and business stakeholders
• Outstanding oral and written communication, interpersonal, and negotiation skills
• Availability to accommodate working with team members across different time zones, with one or two meetings per week starting at 8am PT or finishing at 7pm CET
• Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
• We value the benefits of in-person collaboration and expect candidates to primarily work at our office locations

Compensation

$135K – $240K + Bonus + Equity

At Inceptive, you will drive development forward that could help billions of people. To accomplish this, you will be part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team building our biological software.

Our AI models learn to generate therapeutic molecules with improved properties by training on natural and experimentally-derived data. Acquiring data relevant to function at scale is a critical step in maximizing the performance of our models. We think broadly about the type and scale of data necessary to improve our models, then identify or invent the methods needed to acquire that data.

You will be responsible for the development and deployment of novel high-throughput assays to measure various properties of large sequence libraries. You will use a data-driven approach to optimize assays and apply chemical and biological insights to maximize the utility of information collected. You will apply this data to efficiently improve design of therapeutic molecules in close collaboration with biologists, ML and data engineers, and translational experts.

Your Mission, should you choose to accept it

• Embody our vision of an antedisciplinary environment and embrace learning about areas outside of your traditional area of expertise
• Collaborate with team members from diverse backgrounds to create experiments that creatively leverage biology and computation
• Develop and execute pooled assays to measure sequence-to-function in vitro, in cells, and in vivo
• Generate, analyze, and communicate data that maximally impacts AI-based molecular design

Qualifications

• PhD and 4+ years of post-PhD experience (e.g., startup, industry, or research)
• Problem-solver who combines deep knowledge of experimental methods with quantitative intuition to generate biological data at and beyond the state-of-the-art
• Solid foundation in theory and techniques of molecular and cellular biology
• History of building highly multiplexed assays to generate rich datasets from mammalian cells, such as large functional screens or single-cell ‘omics
• Scientific programming (preferably in Python), including analysis and visualization of complex data
• Availability to work with team members across US and Europe, with meetings starting at 8am PT
• Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
• We value in-person collaboration and expect candidates to work at our lab location

Preferred skills

• Experience with mammalian synthetic biology, particularly for cell therapy applications
• Knowledge of RNA biology, biochemistry, and biologics drug development
• Strong understanding of next-generation sequencing platforms (Illumina, Oxford Nanopore, Pac Bio), including library preparation and data analysis
• Experience generating and analyzing large ‘omics datasets, via sequencing and/or mass spectrometry

Compensation

$135K – $240K + Bonus + Equity

At Inceptive, you will drive research forward that could help billions of people. To accomplish this, you will be part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team building our biological software.

If our team of scientists, deep learning researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs sounds like home to you, please tell us what you would contribute in your application.

We value the benefits of in-person collaboration and prefer candidates who can easily and regularly connect at one of our office locations

Please note that our Open Apply is global and you may apply from any location.

Qualifications

• Availability to accommodate working with team members across different time zones, with one or two meetings per week starting at 8am PT or finishing at 7pm CET
• Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
• We value the benefits of in-person collaboration and prefer candidates who can easily and regularly connect at one of our office locations

Compensation

$105K – $240K + Bonus + Equity