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Senior Scientist, Structural Data Representation

Astera Institute· Radial
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Emeryville HQ$220k - $260kFull-timePosted 4d ago

About the role

Senior Scientist to lead how Prism's conformational ensemble models are encoded, organized into databases, and connected to visualization, ML, and other computational pipelines; leads a small Prism team and collaborates with external developer communities to standardize ensemble data in structural biology.

Responsibilities

  • Lead and mentor a team of 2–3 scientists and software engineers, setting priorities and driving adoption of Prism's ensemble models.
  • Work with the Scientific Program Director to determine strategy and prioritization of approaches and science within the team.
  • Partner with Prism's modeling and ensemble-functional team to ensure data representation supports models and downstream analyses.
  • Design, test, and deploy encoding models and schemas for conformational ensembles.
  • Direct the development of databases to connect dynamic ensemble models for data sharing and downstream use, including visualization tools.
  • Collaborate with external partners such as the PDB and tool developers in visualization, ML, and computational chemistry to bridge Prism work with the broader ecosystem.
  • Partner with teams behind open-source structural biology tools to implement native support for ensemble models

Qualifications

  • PhD in a relevant area; at least 4 years of work experience
  • Experience managing a team of scientists or engineers
  • Deep understanding of how structural models are encoded and used for interpretation, including fluency in mmCIF and its extension mechanisms
  • Strong coding experience, with a track record of writing software that other people use
  • Clear communication across technical communities; ability to explain data standards to structural biologists, ML researchers, and software developers
  • Execution-forward approach; ships working versions, gathers feedback, and iterates
  • Nice to have: product development experience
  • Nice to have: experience building scientific databases or visualization tools

Skills

Required:Team leadership and mentorshipmmCIF fluencyData encoding and schema designSoftware developmentScientific communication

Benefits

  • Top-tier health insurance plans with 99% of premiums covered by Astera Institute for employees and dependents
  • Daily lunch that brings the full office together, plus a well-stocked fridge and pantry
  • Licenses for frontier AI tools and software
  • 403(b) retirement plans, flexible paid time off, paid parental leave, commuter benefits, and health and dependent care FSAs
  • Visa Sponsorship
Last updated Oct 22, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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