Director, Protein Engineering

Key Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of scientists and research associates, setting clear technical direction, performance expectations, and career development paths.
• Build team structure, hiring plans, and resource allocation to match pipeline demand; partner with HR on recruiting, onboarding, and retention.
• Establish team operating rhythms, including project reviews, technical reviews, and platform roadmap planning.
• Own and advance the next-generation yeast display platform, including library design, surface display formats, selection workflows, and downstream characterization.
• Drive integration of the yeast display platform with the FUSE automation wet lab, including liquid handling, automated sorting workflows, cell-free expression, and LIMS/data infrastructure.
• Define platform performance metrics (throughput, diversity, hit rate, developability) and lead continuous improvement against those metrics.
• Evaluate and onboard new technologies, instrumentation, and methodologies; build the case and budget for capital investments where warranted.
• Direct display-based discovery and engineering campaigns for bi-specific and multi-specific antibodies, ADC binder components, and effector molecules across oncology programs.
• Lead engineering strategy for affinity modulation, stability and developability optimization, epitope masking, conditional activation (pH, protease, etc.), and other novel binder properties.
• Represent FUSE on project teams and at portfolio reviews; translate program needs into platform deliverables and timelines.
• Ensure data quality, reproducibility, and integrity across the team; oversee SOPs, LIMS usage, and documentation standards.
• Use NGS, flow cytometry, and computational tools to inform iterative protein design and lead selection.
• Stay current on the protein engineering, display technology, and lab automation landscape; bring relevant advances into the platform.

Qualifications

• PhD in protein engineering, biochemistry, structural biology, molecular biology, bioengineering, or a related field.
• Minimum 10 years of industry experience in biologics drug discovery and development.
• Minimum 8 years of hands-on experience with yeast display, including library design and construction, FACS-based selection and sorting, deep sequencing analysis, and downstream characterization of selected binders.
• Demonstrated experience building or substantially advancing a yeast display platform, including integration with laboratory automation (liquid handlers, automated cell sorters, LIMS, or equivalent).
• Track record leading and developing a team of scientists and research associates, with clear examples of hiring, mentoring, performance management, and career progression.
• Demonstrated delivery of engineered binders or therapeutic leads into a biologics pipeline, ideally including bi-specific or multi-specific formats.
• Strong working knowledge of antibody and binder formats (IgG, Fab, scFv, VHH) and engineering strategies including affinity maturation, stability and developability optimization, and conditional activation.
• Experience leading display campaigns alongside complementary discovery modalities (phage display, immunization-derived repertoires, in silico/AI-based design) is strongly preferred.
• Excellent scientific judgment and the ability to make timely, decisive calls on campaign strategy, hit triage, and resource allocation.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to represent the function to senior leadership and external partners.
• Experience in oncology biologics, ADCs, or T cell engagers.
• Familiarity with computational and machine learning approaches to library design and binder optimization.
• Experience presenting at scientific conferences, contributing to patents, and publishing in peer-reviewed journals.