Associate Director, Computational Biology – Early Discovery

About the role

As an Associate Director within Recursion's early discovery team, you will lead a team of world-class computational biologists focused on identifying and advancing the next generation of oncology targets and therapeutics. You will act as a "player-coach," balancing direct technical contribution with the mentorship and strategic leadership of a high-performing team. Your mission is to integrate Recursion's massive datasets—phenomics, transcriptomics, genomics, proteomics—to nominate novel targets, validate disease biology, and define precision oncology strategies to advance promising therapeutic targets into drug discovery programs. This is a highly collaborative role partnering with biologists, data scientists, platform and data engineers, and translational experts to develop and scale methods for target discovery in oncology and immunological diseases.

Responsibilities

• Drive target discovery by evaluating molecular evidence for target nomination and validation, leveraging Recursion's platform to identify novel vulnerabilities in disease biology
• Lead and mentor a team of data scientists and computational biologists, fostering a culture of scientific rigor, bold experimentation, delivery, and continuous professional growth
• Pilot novel methods for target discovery, disease biology validation, and early patient population hypotheses to send programs into nomination cascades
• Define internal criteria for target data packages and early patient population strategy
• Connect innovative analysis methods to platform and engineering teams to solve current projects and accelerate future ones
• Collaborate cross-functionally with biologists, medicinal chemists, translational, and clinical leads to build compelling data packages that drive program milestones and portfolio investment decisions
• Present data analysis to external decision makers and stakeholders in a clear and compelling way that drives toward getting medicines to patients

The team you'll join

Our group is a bold, agile, diverse collective of computational drug discovery scientists focused on bringing new therapeutics into the clinic at an accelerated pace. Our expertise spans precision oncology, I&I (immunology and inflammation), and neuroscience. We partner closely with other functions to design and execute impactful data analyses for new targets and drug programs and are responsible for data strategy across the portfolio.

Requirements

• PhD in a relevant field (computational biology, bioinformatics, cancer biology, immuno-oncology, etc.) with a very strong computational focus and 3+ years of experience in biotech or pharma industry OR MS in a relevant field and 5+ years of experience in biotech or pharma industry solving fundamental problems in early drug discovery
• Domain expertise in oncology or immunological diseases
• Strong understanding of patient genetics and druggability of disease relevant pathways
• Experience applying computational methods (including probabilistic, statistical, and/or machine learning techniques) to analyze and integrate complex biological and/or human clinical data in a high level programming language such as Python or R
• Exceptional data visualization skills
• A track record of managing and developing direct reports within a scientific or technical environment
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills, including an ability to explain complex scientific concepts to a variety of audiences using a combination of plots, documents, and presentations

Preferred qualifications

• Experience building a target discovery engine in oncology or immunological diseases
• Experience designing high-throughput screens with CRISPR or small molecule perturbations to validate therapeutic hypotheses
• Previous exposure to translational and/or clinical development programs to guide selection of relevant models for target validation experiments

Pay & schedule

This is an office-based, hybrid position at our US headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah. Employees are expected to work in the office at least 50% of the time. Based on the skills, experience, and qualifications needed for this role, the estimated annual base salary range is $200,000–$220,500. In addition to base salary, this role is eligible for an annual bonus, equity compensation, and a comprehensive benefits package.