Job Details

Overview

Septerna is a biotechnology company based in South San Francisco, CA on a mission to develop life-changing medicines for patients. The company focuses on GPCR-focused drug discovery using the native complex platform to recapitulate GPCRs with their native structure, function, and dynamics outside the cellular context. Septerna has an emerging pipeline of GPCR-targeted small molecule programs with potential for growth to target many GPCRs that have been undruggable and unexploited to date.

We are excited to expand our multidisciplinary team of individuals focused on creating revolutionary medicines. We value diversity of thought, expertise, and background through collaboration and encourage employees to bring their authentic selves to work, learn from a talented team, and contribute their passion and energy to our mission.

You will directly help move therapies through preclinical research, positioning them for success in the clinic in a fast-paced environment.

For more information see: www.septerna.com.

The Role

Septerna is seeking an experienced Data Scientist for our Data Science and ML team to drive our drug discovery efforts through the application of advanced data science and machine learning techniques. You will apply ML for chemistry and drug discovery to develop models for tasks such as hit identification and molecular property prediction and mine Septerna's GPCR datasets to deliver ML solutions in collaboration with data science and experimental teams.

Key responsibilities

• Apply machine learning techniques (e.g., deep learning, graph neural networks, ensemble methods) to drug hit finding and molecular property prediction.
• Work extensively with chemical data, including various molecular representations (e.g., SMILES, molecular graphs, fingerprints).
• Utilize machine learning libraries, platforms, and infrastructure to build, train, and evaluate models.
• Collaborate closely with chemists, biologists, and other data scientists to understand project goals and translate them into data science solutions.
• Develop and implement robust data pipelines for preparing and analyzing chemical and biological data.
• Evaluate the performance of models using appropriate metrics and iterate to improve their accuracy and applicability.
• Communicate findings and insights clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Stay current with the latest advancements in machine learning for drug discovery and recommend their adoption where appropriate.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in a quantitative field (e.g., Data Science, Computer Science, Chemistry) with 5+ years of relevant industry experience.
• Strong understanding of the principles and application of machine learning in drug discovery.
• Proven experience in building and deploying ML models for tasks such as chemical property prediction or hit identification.
• Proficiency in handling and analyzing chemical data using relevant tools and libraries (e.g., RDKit).
• Experience with various molecular representations (SMILES, fingerprints, graphs).
• Strong programming skills in Python and experience with relevant data science and machine learning libraries (e.g., scikit-learn, TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Familiarity with databases and experience working with large datasets.
• Experience with cloud computing platforms for ML model training and data storage.
• Excellent communication, presentation, and collaboration skills.

Preferred skills

• Experience working with DNA-encoded library (DEL) data and analysis.
• Familiarity with cheminformatics and/or computational chemistry techniques.
• Working knowledge of AWS solutions for ML and data science (e.g. Athena, Sagemaker, Batch).

Compensation and benefits

The anticipated salary range for candidates who will work in South San Francisco, CA is $140,000 - $185,000. Individual pay may vary based on additional factors, including, and without limitation, job-related skills, experience, work location and relevant education or training. Septerna's compensation package also includes benefits, stock options, and annual target bonus for full-time positions.

EEO and privacy notices

Note: The following has been retained in plain text as mandated legal statements and not to be translated. We are an Equal Opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status.

Note to Employment Agencies: Please do not forward any agency resumes. The company will not be responsible for any fees related to resumes that are unsolicited.

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