AI in Residence

Xaira is an AI-driven biotech developing generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, plus foundation models for biology and disease. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

AI in Residence is a highly selective role at the intersection of frontier machine learning and drug discovery. Designed as an industry alternative to a traditional postdoctoral position, the program is for exceptional researchers and engineers who want to apply advanced AI to real biomedical problems end to end, from data to deployed systems. Residents join a small cohort working on high-impact AI efforts across Xaira, collaborating closely with AI scientists, research engineers, and drug discovery teams to design, build, and ship machine learning capabilities that directly influence therapeutic programs.

What You'll Do

• Develop and advance ML models for biological, preclinical, and translational datasets (e.g., multimodal omics, imaging, text, assay data).
• Design and implement scalable pipelines for data curation, training, evaluation, and inference integrated into discovery workflows.
• Own projects end-to-end: problem framing → prototyping → validation → deployment.
• Evaluate robustness and reliability (generalization, uncertainty, failure modes), plus interpretability where it supports scientific decision-making.
• Contribute technical leadership by proposing new directions, shaping platform capabilities, and raising engineering/research standards through collaboration.

You Might Work On

• Foundation / representation models over multimodal biological and translational data.
• Methods for small, biased, noisy datasets; distribution shift; and uncertainty estimation.
• ML systems for experimental prioritization, assay interpretation, or translational signal discovery.
• Evaluation frameworks and benchmarks tailored to discovery decision-making.
• Tooling that makes models usable by scientists (interfaces, automation, monitoring).

We're Looking For

• Recent MS or PhD graduates (or equivalent research experience) in ML/AI, computational biology, biomedical engineering, or related fields.
• Evidence of research excellence through high-quality publications or artifacts. Top venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ACL; Nature Methods, Cell Systems) are a plus, but strong preprints, open-source contributions, or shipped systems with demonstrated impact are equally compelling.
• Demonstrated ability to lead substantial technical work with originality.
• Motivation to translate rigorous research into reliable, deployable AI systems that support therapeutic discovery.

Program Structure

• Duration: 6–12 months.
• Start Dates: First hires beginning March 2026, with rolling applications and additional intakes in Summer and Fall 2026.
• Cohort Size: Small, highly selective cohort to enable meaningful ownership and close collaboration.
• Mentorship & Support: Dedicated technical mentor, plus structured feedback from senior AI, engineering, and scientific leadership.

Compensation: The expected monthly compensation range is $10,000–$15,000, depending on experience and qualifications. Xaira is open to higher compensation for candidates with exceptional experience or impact.