Computational Biologist

Computational Biologist

Emeryville, CA

A Bit About Us

We are Arcadia Science, an evolutionary biology company founded and led by scientists. Our mission is to turn natural innovations into real-world solutions by developing systematic and quantitative approaches to leveraging biology for therapeutics R&D. We share our research as openly as possible to accelerate discovery and make our work broadly useful.

About the Role

We're looking for several PhD-level computational scientists to help develop our bioinformatic tools into scalable products that are rigorous and useful for a wide range of researchers. You'll work closely with the platform scientists and engineering team, quickly and iteratively translating research-grade code and methods into something usable, testable, and ready to openly release. Our most urgent need right now is in protein engineering and design, but we're also looking for expertise in genetics and phylogenomics.

What You'll Do

• Lead or contribute to projects in areas such as protein engineering and design, phylogenetic analyses, and research protocol optimization
• Improve the effectiveness or scale of computational approaches for analyzing biological data
• Develop workflows to evaluate the statistical rigor of bioinformatic pipelines
• Act as a bridge between scientists and engineers to turn research prototypes and analysis scripts into robust, user-facing tools
• Help define what "usable" means for a given computational tool: inputs, outputs, edge cases, and the workflows real users will expect
• Communicate technical tradeoffs clearly to both scientists and engineers

What We're Looking For

• A PhD in a relevant field (computational biology, bioinformatics, computer science, or a related discipline)
• At least 2 years of relevant post-PhD experience, in academia or industry
• Comfortable producing production-quality code, not just analysis notebooks
• A track record of creating open tools, pipelines, or software that other people used, not just running one-off analyses

Nice To Have

• Familiarity with modern protein structure and design tools (e.g., AlphaFold, ESMFold, RFdiffusion, or similar)
• Track record of collaborating closely with software engineers: code review, shared repos, CI/testing workflows (rather than handing off scripts)
• Experience working with agentic coding tools (e.g., Claude Code, Codex, Cursor), with intuition around trade-offs between speed, code quality, and maintainability
• Experience taking a research tool through to a released product

Schedule, Location, and Compensation

This is an on-site role at Arcadia's office. We're open to either part-time or full-time arrangements. For part-time roles, we require a minimum of 15 hours/week with at least five of those hours on-site, preferably in the mornings during team strategy sessions. The annualized compensation range is $150,000–$200,000 commensurate with experience, prorated for part-time schedules.

Application Process

Please submit a resume and fully answer all application questions addressing your interest in and qualifications for the position. The review process will involve in-person interviews and a short, practical work test. Employment offers are contingent on reference and background checks.

Arcadia is an equal opportunity workplace; we welcome people from all backgrounds and communities. We provide competitive compensation and practical benefits to keep you happy and healthy so that you can do your best work.