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Salary: USD 200,000 - 280,000 / annual
LatchBio is seeking a Bioengineer Lead Scientist to join their benchmarking team, reporting directly to the CTO. This role sits at the intersection of AI model evaluation and biological science, focused on measuring and improving AI model performance in biology.
You will lead a team of up to 7 scientists and own hands-on management, scientific excellence, and tooling. Key responsibilities include:
- Benchmark Co-Design: Map your domain knowledge into a taxonomy of benchmarks and co-author releases for frontier labs to monitor and improve model performance (see benchmarks.bio for examples).
- Hands-On Task Design: Design tasks and graders that compose benchmarks; set task standards and rubric quality for the team.
- Production & Quality: Ensure the program meets volume and timelines agreed with partners. Conduct quality reviews of team work, assessing scientific value, writing clarity, scope fit, and whether tasks teach transferable skills.
- Team Leadership & Mentorship: Lead up to 7 scientists through onboarding, 1:1s, feedback, and professional development. Be a reliable point of contact for technical and professional blockers.
- Operations Support: Work with engineering to optimize compute and platform usage so scientists focus on science.
- Tools & Product Engineering: Build tools that automate tedious task creation; provide core user feedback on new platform tools.
- Strategy: Lead domain initiatives (data acquisition, roadmap definition), help hire and close candidates, and communicate strategic initiatives to leadership.
First 3 months: Month 1 involves meeting the team, onboarding to internal tooling, and designing your first benchmark structure. Month 2 focuses on designing and launching a benchmark while onboarding L1 hires. Month 3 involves engaging frontier lab partners to scale work and hiring to build out the function.
This is a full-time role with approximately 40 hours per week; nights and weekends are not expected. The role is hybrid with no requirement for daily onsite presence, though some remote work is possible. Ramp to full speed takes about 3 months.
REQUIREMENTS:
- Experience in bioengineering or related life sciences domain
- Demonstrated ability to design scientific benchmarks and evaluation frameworks
- Strong scientific judgment and ability to assess quality of scientific work
- Team leadership and mentorship experience
- Ability to work cross-functionally with engineering, product, and scientific teams
- Experience with AI/ML model evaluation or similar technical assessment work preferred
