---
title: 'Head of Research at Valency Systems Inc.'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/head-of-research-valency-systems-inc-berkeley-90ak2p6m36sw'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-08'
---

# Head of Research at Valency Systems Inc.

- **Company:** Valency Systems Inc.
- **Location:** Berkeley, CA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-03-30
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-08
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/valency/9aa80e61-177e-42ca-99eb-99ed5beae94e

## Job description

## ABOUT VALENCY

Valency Systems is a small, dynamic team of engineers, scientists, and researchers building the global hub for the agentic research era.

We're based in Berkeley, California, and we're building something that matters. If you care about open science, advancing research at the speed of thought, and using AI to accelerate discovery, we'd love to talk.

Our team is hybrid. We come together in person 3 days a week, with the option for 2 days of remote work.

## THE POSITION

As our Head of Research, with a PhD or advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field, you will set the research agenda, shaping how and what we build, and directly influencing the trajectory of the product. This role reports directly to the CEO.

You'll be hands-on, collaborating with engineering and product leadership to make sure we're solving the right problems before we build the wrong things. If you thrive in a small, fast-moving environment where deep technical research has direct and immediate impact, this role was built for you.

## WHAT YOU'LL DO

Set and drive the research agenda

- Define the research roadmap, prioritizing work that reduces technical risk and accelerates delivery
- Anticipate hard problems before they become expensive ones — running ahead of the engineering team to validate approaches and surface unknowns early
- Establish research practices and standards that will scale as the team grows

Deep technical contribution

- Leverage graph database, algorithm, and recsys knowledge to tackle complex data representation and retrieval challenges
- Drive measurable improvements in system efficiency and operational cost through research-led optimization
- Apply expertise in large-scale ML systems to improve model performance, system efficiency, and cost at scale

Cross-functional leadership

- Be a true partner to the Head of Engineering and Head of Science — not a hand-off relationship, but a tight collaborative loop
- Work in close alignment with those in product and customer-facing roles to maintain methodological rigor across research output
- Translate complex research findings into clear, actionable guidance for engineers and non-technical stakeholders alike

People & culture

- Manage and mentor (world class) junior researchers
- Contribute to building a culture where curiosity, rigor, and pragmatism coexist

## WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

Required

- PhD or advanced degree in Computer Science, Statistics, or a related field
- Strong command of graph databases and graph algorithms
- A track record of running independent research programs and turning findings into engineering decisions — not just papers
- Comfortable operating with autonomy in a fast-moving, resource-constrained environment

## Preferred

- Experience with bibliometrics and/or research evaluation methodologies — this is a meaningful plus given our domain
- Record of academic publications
- Hands-on experience designing and deploying large-scale ML systems in production
- Familiarity with cost modeling and performance benchmarking for ML infrastructure

## WHY THIS ROLE

You'll have real influence over how a technically ambitious company thinks and builds. This is a founding-team-adjacent position — the research infrastructure you establish will define how we operate for years to come.

## Compensation, Benefits & Equity

We offer a competitive salary, benefits, and meaningful equity in a company building something important from the ground up.

Work Authorization: Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States.

## About Valency Systems Inc.

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Valency Systems Inc. builds a people-centered, AI-accelerated research platform that connects frontier LLMs to tens of millions of scientific papers and preprints, enabling grounded Q&A and discovery.
- **Entity Type**: Private, venture-backed (stage not disclosed)
- **Headquarters**: Berkeley, California, USA (implied by founder affiliations and job postings)
- **Founded**: Not publicly disclosed (the company announced its public launch in mid-2026 via a "Hello World" blog post)
- **Founders**: Josh Bloom (CEO, Co-founder) and Ryan Anderson (COO, Co-founder)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: AI-powered scientific research infrastructure, SaaS/API for research discovery
- **Target customers**: Researchers in academia, national laboratories, government agencies, and industry R&D teams; also applicable to policymakers, investors, and science journalists
- **Mission or purpose**: To create a home for people-centered, AI-accelerated research—keeping AI grounded in the real scientific record, not hallucinations

## Products & Services
- **[Valency Bond](https://valency.io)**: A model context protocol (MCP) service that gives LLMs (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) structured access to an embeddings-indexed corpus of tens of millions of research papers and preprints (coverage from 1965 to present, updated within hours of publication). Includes semantic search, citation graph tools, and 37+ MCP tools for targeted queries, reading list generation, and collaboration discovery.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (private company)
- **Key Metric – Total Funding**: Not disclosed, but confirmed as "backed by venture capital"
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Not named publicly; early users include researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and other national labs, academia, and industry
- **Growth Signals**: The company is actively hiring (multiple roles posted), has a public waitlist for Valency Bond, and has received early positive testimonials from senior scientists at LBNL. The platform indexes tens of millions of papers and grows daily.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Grounded in real research**: Valency Bond directly connects LLMs to the actual scientific record, eliminating hallucinations from outdated or fabricated citations.
- **Freshness**: Papers are indexed within hours of publication, not months or years—critical for fast-moving fields.
- **Token-efficient & fast**: Designed for low latency and high throughput, making it practical for LLM agents and interactive use.
- **Partnership with domain experts**: Built in collaboration with researchers at leading national laboratories, ensuring the tool meets real scientific workflows.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Expanding the Valency Bond platform, onboarding more institutional and individual users, and building out the team. The company is focused on enabling AI-accelerated discovery while keeping humans in the loop ("people-centered").
- **Direction for growth**: Likely targeting deeper integrations with LLMs, expanding coverage to more preprint servers and journals, and serving enterprise/government clients who need secure, on-premises versions.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture highlights**: A science-first, AI-forward startup co-founded by a UC Berkeley professor (astronomy/AI) and a former IBM CTO. Emphasis on human-centered design and rigorous grounding in research.
- **Remote/hybrid/office policy**: Not explicitly stated, but one job posting is for "AMER" (Americas) time zone and the company is based in Berkeley, suggesting a remote-friendly or hybrid model.
- **Notable perks or engineering culture**: Early-stage environment with direct impact on product direction; opportunity to work at the intersection of AI, scientific infrastructure, and user experience. The team is described as "wonderful and talented" and is actively growing.

## Sources
1. [valency.io](https://valency.io/)
2. [blog.valency.io/posts/hello-world/](https://blog.valency.io/posts/hello-world/)
3. [linkedin.com/posts/ryananderson_...](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryananderson_big-news-ive-co-founded-a-startup-called-activity-7457858498870132736-F6Ce)
4. [jobs.ashbyhq.com/valency](https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/valency)

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