---
title: 'AI Biologist - Metagenomics at LatchBio'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/ai-biologist-metagenomics-latchbio-san-francisco-gwgartjr88ym'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# AI Biologist - Metagenomics at LatchBio

- **Company:** LatchBio
- **Location:** San Francisco, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-13
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/latchbio/1714598f-f274-4457-be04-861ba7cde7e4

## Job description

Ai Biologist - Metagenomics

As molecular data generation and frontier model intelligence grows, new approaches to data analysis are needed across the biotech industry. Latch is building intelligent, high-performance agents for biological data analysis, empowering over 5,000 scientists across 150+ R&D labs to handle data from instrument-to-insights.

We're seeking a Ai Biologist to join our Metagenomics team, working at the frontier of what artificial intelligence can achieve in biology.

## About the Role

You will contribute to our technical approach for evaluating how AI agents reason through complex microbiome and metagenomics datasets. Working with software engineers and computational biologists, you'll build ground-truth benchmark datasets: drawn from real published microbiome studies, that rigorously test whether agents can perform the critical analytical and interpretive steps that expert microbiome researchers execute.

Your deep expertise in microbiome biology, metagenomics analysis, and the ability to identify confounders and technical artifacts will define how we measure agent capability in computational microbiology.

## Requirements

- Master's or PhD in microbiology, microbial ecology, bioinformatics, biology, or related field
- 3+ years of hands-on research experience with microbiome or metagenomics data, demonstrated through publications or industry work
- Deep expertise in at least one of:
- Human microbiome and disease (e.g. IBD, CRC, obesity)
- Longitudinal microbiome or microbiome interventions (e.g. FMT, diet, antibiotics)
- Microbial function and metabolism
- Plant, soil, or environmental microbial ecology
- Experience interpreting microbiome data in biological context and identifying confounders, technical artifacts, and limitations of the underlying experiments
- Proficiency in Python and/or R for biological data analysis and visualization
- Familiarity with 16S and/or shotgun metagenomics, including taxonomic, functional, and community-level analysis

Nice-to-Have

- Hands-on experience designing or troubleshooting microbiome experiments, including sampling, extraction, controls, or library preparation
- Experience integrating metagenomics with metabolomics, metatranscriptomics, host omics, or clinical phenotypes
- Experience with strain-level analysis, metagenomic assembly, MAGs, or long-read sequencing

Culture @ Latch

How we work. Genuinely flexible schedules - we just ask that you communicate when you're coming in later than usual. We care most about hard work and output. We're respectfully opinionated, it will always be us against problems, not each other. Optimize for each other's time and bring solutions, not just problems. You'll join a bench suited to your expertise, but we value cross-domain learning and interoperability across teams.

The office & perks. Waterfront office near Oracle Park, 2x free daily meals, unlimited snacks, company outings most months, and team offsites. Plus a vibrant community: cycling, soccer, figure skating, boxing, run clubs, reading clubs, martial arts, music, game nights.

## Compensation & Logistics

- 1099 (or W8-BEN) contract, 40 hrs/week, no end date
- Fully performance-based pay: $120K–$180K, uncapped upside. 2x quota = 2x pay.
- 2-4 week paid ramp—full OTE from day one
- Remote (globally), hybrid, or onsite in SF (onsite preferred)
- Work authorization: OPT visa holders only (not STEM Extension)
- Onsite perks: 2x free meals/day, waterfront office (China Basin), monthly parking (based on availability)
- Candidates with all of the above qualifications + proven management skills will be eligible for more senior positions

Interview Process

Timeline: We move fast: 8–12 days from submission to offer.

1. Intro Screen - Technical Recruiter
2. Take-Home Project - HackerRank
3. Technical Interview - Member of Technical Staff
4. Culture Interview - C-Suite
5. Offer

## About LatchBio

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: LatchBio builds and deploys frontier AI agents for biological data analysis, serving over 300 biopharma and R&D labs worldwide.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A; total funding $33.2M)
- **Headquarters**: San Francisco, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Alfredo Andere (CEO) and Kenny Workman (CTO)

## Core Business
- Primary industry: Biotechnology Research / AI for biology
- Target customers: B2B – biopharma companies, academic R&D labs, and solution providers (kits, assays, instrument vendors)
- Mission: Deploy AI agents into real scientific work to accelerate data analysis and drug discovery

## Products & Services
- **Latch Platform**: A unified, serverless bioinformatics platform that lets scientists run, track, and debug pipelines via an SDK-generated no-code interface. Supports FastQ, CSV, H5AD, TIFF, and other formats. Agents can analyze messy real-world data.
- **Latch SDK**: Python toolchain to define serverless workflows and dynamically generate no-code UIs, removing cloud-infrastructure overhead.
- **agent.bio**: Public, interactive sandbox where frontier AI agents (e.g., Claude 4.8 Opus) analyze biological data. Supports 40+ solution providers.
- **benchmarks.bio**: Open, reproducible benchmarks measuring AI agent performance on spatial, single-cell, epigenomics, and preclinical pharmacology data. Includes papers like scBench-Long, TxBench-PP, etc.
- **White-labeled data analysis**: Solution providers can offer a branded, simpler analysis experience for their kits and services.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Annual revenue of ~$1.0M (LinkedIn estimate); total funding $33.2M
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Coatue, Lux Capital, Fifty Years, Haystack, Gelt, Backend Capital; individual investors include George Church, Jeff Dean, Hemant Taneja, Laura Deming, Alec Nielsen
- **Growth Signals**: 140% YoY headcount growth (from ~11 to 26 employees); 300+ biopharma and academic teams served; 40+ solution providers onboarded; recent publication of multiple benchmark papers (2025–2026)

## Competitive Advantages
- **First-mover in AI agents for biology**: Combines frontier LLMs with rigorous, verifiable benchmarks tailored to biological data (spatial, single-cell, epigenomics, pharmacology).
- **Open benchmarks & reproducibility**: All benchmarks (e.g., scBench-Long) are published openly, building trust and attracting top talent.
- **White-labeling for solution providers**: Allows kit and instrument vendors to offer AI-powered data analysis under their own brand, creating a network effect.
- **Tight integration with real lab workflows**: Supports common file formats and interfaces with existing pipelines, reducing friction for scientists.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue research and deployment of AI agents for biology, with emphasis on long-horizon tasks and messy real-world data.
- Expand the agent.bio sandbox to more solution providers and biopharma customers.
- Publish additional benchmarks (spatial, preclinical) to establish Latch as the standard evaluator of AI in biology.
- Grow engineering and bioinformatics teams to accelerate platform development.

## Why Work Here
- **Engineering culture**: Small, high-autonomy team where engineers own features end-to-end and see their code impact thousands of scientists the same day. Reading groups on category theory, immunology, and more.
- **Remote/hybrid policy**: Not explicitly stated, but headquarters in San Francisco; office parking subsidized. Likely in-office with flexibility.
- **Notable perks**: Unlimited PTO, 100%-subsidized platinum health plan (Cigna) + 75% for dependents, dental/vision, 401(k), ambitious equity, 12+ meals weekly, annual tech stipend, signing bonus, O-1 visa sponsorship, professional development.
- **Team size**: ~26 employees, with 65% in technical roles (engineering, bioinformatics, research). Flat structure with direct access to founders.
- **Growth trajectory**: Rapid headcount growth and expanding customer base offer career acceleration opportunities.

## Sources
1. [latch.bio](https://latch.bio/)
2. [latch.bio/about](https://latch.bio/about)
3. [linkedin.com/company/latchbio](https://www.linkedin.com/company/latchbio)
4. [cbinsights.com/company/latch-bio](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/latch-bio)
5. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/latchbio](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/latchbio)

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