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Head of Platform Bioengineering & Assay Development

Parallel Bio· Parallel Bio
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San Francisco, CA$203k - $229kFull-timePosted 1mo ago

About the role

Leadership role overseeing scientific direction, assay development, technology transfer, and platform readiness at the San Francisco site for a human-first drug discovery platform using organoids, automation, and AI.

Responsibilities

  • Lead the scientific team at the San Francisco site, including hiring, managing, and developing scientists and maintaining high experimental rigor and pace; set scientific direction and experimental strategy for the platform; run regular data reviews to distinguish biological effects from technical effects; establish high standards for experimental design, controls, documentation, reproducibility, and decision-making; facilitate productive scientific disagreement and clear conclusions; serve as scientific lead for external partner programs from design to data delivery; remain hands-on at the bench on difficult problems.
  • Own the development and maturation of biological assays and workflows for execution on the Parallel Bio platform; translate R&D assays into robust, repeatable, scalable processes; develop characterization and optimization strategies for complex organoid and cell-based assays; identify critical assay and process parameters; design experiments establishing operating ranges and variability; lead troubleshooting of complex biological and process failures using hypothesis-driven experimentation.
  • Define and build framework for transferring assays and biological processes from R&D into development and routine Technical Operations; define entry/exit criteria for assay maturation and technology transfer; establish platform readiness criteria including controls, reference data, and reproducibility; ensure transferred assays have documentation and scientific understanding for reliable execution; partner with Technical Operations for reproducible execution; lead or support comparability studies when changes occur.
  • Develop strategies for scaling biological workflows from exploratory to high-throughput platform processes; understand and reduce variability from operators, instruments, automation, reagents, donors, and environment; establish process controls and monitoring; partner with automation and software teams to automate workflows; identify where automation or additional controls improve performance; balance scientific rigor with throughput, cost, and complexity.
  • Partner with R&D and Technical Operations to ensure assays are designed for eventual scale and platform implementation; collaborate with Platform Software, automation, hardware, and data teams to translate biological requirements into platform capabilities; contribute to platform roadmap decisions; support external pharmaceutical programs ensuring scientific defensibility and reproducibility.

Qualifications

  • A Ph.D. in Immunology, Cell Biology, Biology, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Biology, or related discipline

Skills

Required:Scientific leadership and team managementAssay development and characterizationTechnology transfer and platform readinessExperimental design and statisticsHands-on bench work

Benefits

  • Not specified in the description
Last updated Sep 30, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.
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About Parallel Bio

Using the immune system to cure disease

Parallel Bio created a human 'immune system in a dish' to discover drugs and immunotherapies more likely to work in patients. Our platform has all of the same elements as a human immune system, meaning you can test drugs and vaccines as if you were testing them in actual patients from the start. The biggest reason why 95% of new drugs fail is that they were tested in mice - but with our human platform, pharma companies will know which drugs will successfully treat patients, speeding up the process and reducing the cost. To date our platform has successfully been used to test 12 drugs, and vaccines against 8 different diseases. The company is founded by Robert DiFazio, a former Stanford R&D director with a PhD in immunology, and Juliana Hilliard, a former System1 Biosciences R&D lead with an MSc in bioengineering, both of whom have led drug discovery programs for years.

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