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PostEra (YC W20) Is Hiring AI Researchers for Drug Discovery
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- DeepHorus
PostEra, an AI-first biotech and Y Combinator W20 alum, is hiring Machine Learning Researchers for Agentic Science. The company uses Proton, its AI medicinal chemistry platform, to accelerate drug discovery. The role focuses on developing agentic research to automate mechanistic models and analyze biological data. The hiring signals AI-driven discovery expansion.
PostEra advances internal pipeline in Women's Health and Fertility. It has used Proton to nominate multiple clinical candidates for PMOS and Fertility. It also partners with pharma, closing over $1B in AI partnerships, including four multi-year agreements with Pfizer and Amgen. It leads an NIH-funded antiviral center for pandemic preparedness.
The researcher will build agentic systems for biochemical and physiological processes. They will automate development of quantitative models and target validation. They will work with chemists and biologists to drive drug discovery decisions. The role blends AI with chemistry.
A key focus is molecular and tabular in-context learning. The researcher will build foundation models from PostEra's proprietary multimodal data. They must determine which prior examples are relevant and quantify when transfer helps or harms. Reliable predictions under distribution shift are essential.
Responsibilities include benchmarking agentic systems, leading research projects, and designing models that adapt to new assays with limited labeled context. The researcher will compare approaches against strong baselines and curate test cases. They will connect metrics to potency, ADME, selectivity, and lead optimization.
PostEra emphasizes a minimalist organizational structure. It celebrates individual achievement through proportional compensation and promotions. Cross-disciplinary collaboration is central to delivering cures. Prior drug discovery experience is not required, but motivation is expected.
The hire will drive the full research loop, from task definition to scaling models and translating methods. They will maintain reproducible code and well-tracked experiments. This reflects PostEra's AI-first approach to biotech. As AI partnerships grow, this search could shape medicine discovery.
