---
title: 'Director, Engineering at GenBio AI'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-genbio-ai-palo-alto-23ja6v3twf5b'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Director, Engineering at GenBio AI

- **Company:** GenBio AI
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Compensation:** $300k–$400k
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2026-08-18
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://jobs.lever.co/genbio/bd52a559-4c7f-469e-a78d-d230710df648

## Job description

GenBio AI is building the Virtual Cell World Model - a persistent, multimodal AI system that predicts, simulates, and ultimately programs cellular behavior. Rather than producing isolated predictions, the Virtual Cell enables scientists to query cellular states, perform virtual perturbations, and design new biological interventions within a unified computational world. Together with AIDO Foundry, our AI-native engineering framework for automating Virtual Cell development, we are building the software infrastructure for the next generation of AI-driven drug discovery. As our team scales, we are seeking a highly execution-oriented Director of Engineering to drive a culture of engineering excellence and rapid delivery at our Palo Alto office. The core objective of this role is to translate our long-term vision into actionable engineering roadmaps, enforce rigorous timelines, and successfully operationalize our research into production-grade systems.

## Responsibilities

- Translate high-level vision into concrete, actionable engineering roadmaps, driving a high-tempo shipping cadence and ensuring the team consistently hits critical product and infrastructure milestones on strict timelines.

- Actively contribute to the codebase as a hands-on engineering leader, writing code, reviewing pull requests, and setting the technical bar while coordinating complex efforts across diverse product and infrastructure teams.

- Build the critical operational bridge between research and engineering, architecting solutions to transition cutting-edge, experimental foundation models into robust, scalable, and highly available production systems.

- Instill a relentless culture of rigor, velocity, and code quality by defining and enforcing uncompromising standards for automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and optimal developer experience.

- Actively manage, mentor, and level up both junior and senior engineers, providing hands-on coaching, performance feedback loops, and architectural guidance to maximize their growth and technical output.

- Partner closely with the executive leadership team and AI research leads to proactively identify critical path dependencies, clear blockers, and align technical execution with the company’s ambitious scientific and commercial goals.

## Qualifications

- Extensive engineering experience (10+ years), with at least 5 years in senior leadership roles, demonstrating a proven track record of managing managers, scaling high-performing teams, and maintaining hands-on technical proficiency.

- Exceptional technical expertise in modern AI infrastructure, with deep, hands-on experience building, scaling, and deploying complex generative AI products and massive foundation models into production environments.

- Demonstrated execution-oriented mindset with the ability to swiftly transition complex, ambiguous technologies from a conceptual R&D phase into a highly reliable, commercial-grade enterprise platform.

- Deep architectural understanding of high-performance computing, strategic GPU cluster optimization, and the unique distributed systems challenges involved in training and serving foundation models at scale.

- Outstanding cross-functional orchestration skills, with the ability to manage complex project timelines and keep diverse, fast-moving teams focused on critical deliverables.

## Preferred Qualifications

- Domain knowledge or prior experience working within computational biology, genomics, drug discovery, or integrating AI into scientific software platforms.

- Familiarity with building robust internal developer platforms, complex MLOps pipelines, or unified frameworks (similar to our AIDO Foundry) to accelerate AI deployment.

- Prior experience at an early-stage, hyper-growth AI startup, demonstrating the ability to thrive in a highly ambiguous and fast-paced environment.

Join us as we embark on this journey to redefine the future of biology and medicine. We are an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. GenBio AI participates in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s E-Verify program to confirm the employment eligibility of all newly hired employees. For more information on E-Verify, please visit www.e-verify.gov. #LI-DNI

## About GenBio AI

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: GenBio AI develops the world's first AI-Driven Digital Organism (AIDO), an integrated system of multiscale foundation models to predict, simulate, and program biology for drug design, bioengineering, and personalized medicine.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Startup, Seed stage)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Eric Xing (Chief Scientist), Le Song (CTO), Ziv Bar-Joseph (Co-Founder & CSO), Emma Lundberg (Co-Founder & Chief Strategic Advisor)

## Core Business
- **Primary Industry**: AI-Driven Biology / Generative Biology / Research Services
- **Target Customers**: B2B – pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and biomedical research institutions
- **Mission**: To achieve comprehensive, actionable empirical understandings of the mechanisms underlying all organismal physiologies and diseases, paving the way for a new paradigm in drug design, bio-engineering, personalized medicine, and fundamental biomedical research, all powered by Generative Biology.

## Products & Services
- **AI-Driven Digital Organism (AIDO)**: An integrated system of multiscale foundation models covering DNA, RNA, Protein, and Cell data. Used for predicting, simulating, and programming biological systems from molecular interactions to virtual cells.
- **Generative Biology Platform**: A suite of AI models that enable drug design, vaccine safety prediction, treatment personalization, and clinical diagnostics.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – 1 prior funding round (amount undisclosed). Headcount: 53 employees (+84.8% YoY growth).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Founding team backed by prominent financial investors; scientific collaborations with Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). Key personnel include Eran Segal and Fabian Theis as Senior Scientific Fellows.
- **Growth Signals**: Rapid headcount growth (84.8% YoY), global expansion with offices in Palo Alto, Paris, and Abu Dhabi, release of six foundational AI models covering DNA, RNA, Protein, and Cell, and strong LinkedIn following (33,454 followers, +155.9% yearly).

## Competitive Advantages
- **World-Class Founding Team**: Led by renowned AI scientists Eric Xing (CMU/MBZUAI President) and Le Song, with senior fellows from top academic institutions. Combines deep expertise in AI, machine learning, distributed computing, and computational biology.
- **First-Mover in AI-Driven Digital Organism**: Pioneering the concept of a unified, multiscale AI model for biology, which is a significant moat against competitors building single-purpose models.
- **Global, Cross-Disciplinary Talent**: Team spans 5 countries (US, France, UAE, Canada, UK) and blends computational biology, machine learning, molecular science, bioinformatics, and business expertise.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current Priorities**: Continue developing and refining the AIDO platform, expand the suite of foundation models, grow the global team, and establish partnerships with pharmaceutical and biotech companies to commercialize discoveries.
- **Direction for Growth**: Scaling the engineering and research teams, deepening integration of AI with wet-lab biology, and expanding into new therapeutic areas and bioengineering applications.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven Culture**: A shared commitment to transforming biology through AI, with a focus on responsible AI practices and ethical oversight. The company emphasizes ambitious, game-changing goals.
- **Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration**: Research and engineering blend seamlessly—scientists engage in software development, engineers participate in biological research. All technical hires are “Members of Technical Staff.”
- **Flexible Work & Global Hubs**: Most roles require regular presence in Palo Alto, Paris, or Abu Dhabi, but the company offers 52 flexible remote workdays per year per local policy. Relocation support is provided.
- **Competitive Compensation**: Includes competitive salary, equity, robust retirement plan matching, performance recognition, and regular reviews.
- **Generous Benefits**: Premium health, dental, and vision coverage, mental health resources, fixed PTO, generous parental leave, annual education stipend, home office stipends, and commuter benefits.
- **Rapid Growth & Impact**: With 84.8% headcount growth in the past year and only 53 employees, new hires have direct impact on the company’s foundational technology and strategy.
- **Open Roles (as of search date)**: Product Engineer (Palo Alto, on-site) and Research Scientist, Applied Science (Palo Alto, on-site). Internship applications accepted via Lever.

## Sources
1. [genbio.ai – Careers Page](https://genbio.ai/careers/)
2. [genbio.ai – Introducing GenBio AI](https://genbio.ai/introducing-genbio-ai/)
3. [genbio.ai – Research Page](https://genbio.ai/research-2/)
4. [LinkedIn – GenBio AI Company Profile](https://linkedin.com/company/genbioai)
5. [Lever – GenBio AI Job Postings](https://jobs.lever.co/genbio)

## Other roles at GenBio AI

- [Staff / Principal Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/staff-principal-software-engineer-genbio-ai-palo-alto-1r16qrpaehzg) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Research Scientist, Applied Science](https://feeny.ai/job/research-scientist-applied-science-genbio-ai-palo-alto-y05c3v3rk2yq) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-coates-group-chicago-72aa1fvmvfbs) — Chicago, IL
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-navan-tel-aviv-n58qv0qj8h7k) — Tel Aviv, Israel
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-ibotta-denver-arhxwghs7a6r) — Denver, CO
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-dragos-united-states-gmc6k7g0796d) — United States
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-addepar-new-york-7dqgfnwpzg7z) — New York, NY
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-garner-health-new-york-city-wyda5z4qmgpv) — New York City, NY
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-valgenesis-chennai-rfz0bv1phxp7) — Chennai, India
- [Director, Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/director-engineering-blink-health-india-znbf2kp50831) — India