What are the responsibilities and job description for the Senior Machine Learning Researcher position at Hlx Life Sciences?
Senior Machine Learning Researcher – Biological Foundation Models
📍 Boston, MA | Onsite, Full-Time
About the Company
A well-funded, AI-native biotech company based in Boston working at the intersection of large-scale machine learning and cellular biology. The company is building foundation models to understand and predict cellular behaviour, with the long-term goal of making biology programmable and predictable rather than empirical.
The founding team combines deep expertise in AI, machine learning research, and biology, with strong academic and entrepreneurial pedigree. The company is backed by leading life science and deep tech investors and is in a period of rapid team growth.
The company generates proprietary biological data at scale using novel experimental approaches, and trains large-scale models designed to generalise broadly across biological contexts — underpinning applications in drug discovery, disease modelling, and cell therapy.
The Role
As a Senior Machine Learning Researcher, you will be a core contributor to the development of foundation models for single-cell biology. Working alongside machine learning researchers and computational biologists, you will design novel architectures, drive independent research, and help build the core modelling infrastructure of the platform.
This is a methods-focused, research-heavy role. The team is looking for someone who builds from first principles and wants to operate at the scientific frontier — not someone running existing pipelines.
Responsibilities
- Design, train, and optimise foundation models for single-cell RNA sequencing and other high-dimensional omics data
- Develop novel deep learning architectures tailored to structured biological data
- Build scalable, distributed training and inference pipelines for large-scale biological datasets
- Work closely with computational biologists to ensure models produce biologically meaningful and interpretable outputs
- Engage with the underlying biology — contributing to scientific thinking and research direction, not just the ML
- Mentor and provide technical guidance to colleagues across the research team
Required Qualifications
- 6 years of experience in machine learning with a strong focus on transformer-based architectures and large-scale model development
- Master's degree or higher in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Biology, or a related field
- Strong proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow
- Proven track record of end-to-end model development, from prototyping through to production
- Experience working independently and driving research with minimal direction
- Genuine interest in applying ML to biological problems
Preferred Qualifications
- PhD with a strong publication record in top ML and/or computational biology venues — strongly preferred
- Hands-on experience with single-cell RNA sequencing data and biological modelling — strongly preferred
- Familiarity with reinforcement learning, diffusion models, or multimodal architectures applied to high-dimensional data
- Experience working in a startup or fast-paced research environment
Why This Role
- Work on foundational research with genuine therapeutic relevance across drug discovery and cell therapy
- High-ownership position with significant scope for scientific contribution and career growth
- Collaborate with a team that brings together world-class ML and biology expertise
- Join at a pivotal stage of company growth, with strong investor backing
Interested or know someone who might be? Get in touch.
Salary : $190,000 - $250,000