---
title: 'Leading Data-Driven Lab for AI Medicines at Inceptive'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/leading-data-driven-lab-for-ai-medicines-inceptive-palo-alto-wnh3f1anxnq2'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-10'
---

# Leading Data-Driven Lab for AI Medicines at Inceptive

- **Company:** Inceptive
- **Location:** Palo Alto, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-02-24
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-10
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/inceptive/jobs/5060348007

## Job description

At Inceptive, you will help pioneer the next generation of AI-designed drugs, with the potential to positively impact billions of people, as part of a collaborative, antedisciplinary team.

Training on natural and experimentally-derived data is a core aspect of how our AI models learn to generate therapeutic molecules with exceptional properties. We invest deeply in building and scaling data sources to train and evaluate our models for maximal performance. At the same time, careful validation in orthogonal, translationally-relevant assays is crucial to orient our models.

We are seeking a senior scientific leader versed in high-throughput and translational biology to drive the continued growth and impact of our Palo Alto Lab. You will be a force multiplier for our scientists and engineers, ensuring a high standard of scientific rigor and output in a fast-paced, dynamic environment. You will also interface closely with our AI team to maximize the impact of internal data on Inceptive’s foundation models.

Your Mission, should you choose to accept it

- Lead development and scale-up of high-throughput assays across in vitro, cellular, and in vivo systems, leveraging multiplexed assays and laboratory automation
- Define and execute a lab strategy aligned with Inceptive’s therapeutic and platform priorities, while remaining flexible as modality and partnership needs evolve
- Champion an antedisciplinary culture, encouraging curiosity, rigor, and collaboration across scientific boundaries
- Manage, mentor, and develop a multidisciplinary team of scientists and engineers that rapidly generates high-impact biological data to improve and validate AI design models
- Oversee the development of industry-standard validation assays to keep models and data generation aligned with downstream therapeutic application

## Qualifications

- PhD and 6+ years of post-PhD experience in industrial research applied to drug development
- Experience managing and mentoring a data-driven lab of 10+ scientists
- Experience using high-throughput and/or highly multiplexed assays to generate rich datasets from mammalian cells
- Proven ability to set scientific direction while also executing operationally
- Deep understanding of theory, techniques, and experimental design in molecular and cellular biology
- Visualization, analysis, and statistics applied to complex biological datasets
- Availability to work with team members across US and Europe, with meetings starting at 7am PT
- Readiness to travel several times a year for company retreats and business events
- We value in-person collaboration and expect candidates to work at our lab location

## Preferred skills

- Translational experience with mRNA, oligonucleotides, or other genetic medicines
- Expertise in immunology and/or cell therapy
- Hands-on experience in RNA biology and biochemistry
- Scientific programming in Python
- Hands-on experience with modern data engineering workflows

## Compensation

$221K – $305K + Bonus + Equity

## What we offer

- A competitive compensation package
- 30 days paid vacation per year
- Comprehensive health insurance for US based Beginners
- 401K with company match for US based Beginners and Direktversicherung for German Beginners
- Quarterly company-wide retreats
- Monthly wellness benefit
- Budget for multiple visits per year to our offices in Berlin, Palo Alto or Switzerland
- Learning & Development budget to attend conferences, take courses, or otherwise invest in your professional growth
- A buddy to help you get settled

*Varies by country and does not apply to internships

At Inceptive, we are creating tools to develop increasingly powerful biological software for the rational design of novel, broadly accessible medicines and biotechnologies previously out of reach. Our team brings together vast expertise in molecular biology, machine learning, and software engineering, and we are all working towards becoming antedisciplinary, meaning we deepen the knowledge we have in our area of expertise while also expanding our knowledge of completely new fields.

We approach our goals with a Beginner's mind, humbly and with fresh eyes, and aim to become the pioneers of a new discipline rooted in biology as much as in deep learning, whose impact will be realized together with out-of-the-box thinkers in business and entrepreneurship, defying established categorizations. We are building a company culture centered around growth, learning, and discovery. We believe in humility and open-mindedness in how we approach each other, as well as problems we don't yet have solutions for.

It is the policy of Inceptive to ensure equal employment opportunity without discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, marital status, citizenship, national origin, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law. Inceptive prohibits any such discrimination or harassment.

Inceptive is also committed to welcoming and providing accommodations to people with disabilities. Please let us know if you need any accommodations throughout your application process.

## About Inceptive

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Inceptive builds end-to-end foundation models that learn to design sequence-based medicines (e.g., mRNA, siRNA, ASOs, peptides) by training on diverse observations of life.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: Palo Alto, California, United States
- **Founded**: 2021
- **Founders**: Not publicly available (company is "founded by AI and biochemistry pioneers")

## Core Business
- **Primary industry**: Biotechnology / Artificial Intelligence for drug discovery
- **Target customers**: B2B – pharmaceutical and biotech partners (e.g., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals)
- **Mission statement**: "To positively impact everyone through biological software" – from the careers page.

## Products & Services
- **Foundation Models for Drug Design**: A suite of deep learning models trained on heterogeneous data (sequence, function, structure) to generate novel therapeutic molecules. The models are designed to extrapolate beyond known molecules, yielding superior drug candidates.
- **Wet Lab Validation**: In-house experimental lab that rapidly ranks models and validates designs in vitro and in vivo, closing the in silico-to-biology loop.
- **Partnership Platform**: Co-designs novel medicines with leading drugmakers, providing custom models, data generation, and knowledge transfer.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not disclosed
- **Key Metric**: Total funding raised – **$120M** (latest Series A of $100M, closed approximately 2023) [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/inceptive)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Andreessen Horowitz, NVentures, Artis Ventures, Section 32, Obvious Ventures [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/inceptive); Strategic collaboration with **Alnylam Pharmaceuticals** (up to $2B total, with $30M upfront including equity) [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/inceptive)
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - June 2026: Alnylam partnership valued up to $2B, significantly boosting Inceptive’s credibility and pipeline access.
  - Headcount *conflicting reports*: 21 employees per CB Insights, 40 per PitchBook – both recently cited; fast-growing team with offices in Palo Alto, Berlin, and Zurich [cbinsights.com](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/inceptive) [pitchbook.com](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/495561-34)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Antedisciplinary culture**: No titles; everyone is a "Beginner" – cross-training across biology, AI, and engineering to break silos.
- **Wet + Dry integration**: Rapid iterative cycles between computational design and experimental validation, reducing time from idea to drug candidate.
- **Model generalizability**: Trains on massive heterogeneous data (public, in-house, partner) to generalize across programs, unlike structure-only approaches.
- **Extrapolation ability**: Proprietary algorithms designed to iteratively improve molecules beyond the best seen in training data.

## Strategic Focus
- **Current priorities**: Scaling experiments for AI-designed medicines, advancing commercial strategy, and expanding partnerships (e.g., Alnylam) to bring more candidates to the clinic.
- **Geographic expansion**: Building teams across Palo Alto, Berlin, and Zurich.

## Why Work Here
- **Culture**: "Beginners only" – humble, curiosity-driven environment where everyone learns from each other. No formal titles, emphasizing collaboration over hierarchy.
- **Work model**: Hybrid/office presence expected at one of three hubs (Palo Alto, Berlin, Zurich); roles range from AI research to wet-lab science.
- **Notable perks**: Work on "the beach" where wet and dry science meet; direct impact on designing real medicines.
- **Engineering culture**: Strong emphasis on deep learning, high-throughput data generation, and continuous in silico/in vitro cycles.

## Sources
1. [inceptive.com](https://inceptive.com/)
2. [job-boards.greenhouse.io/inceptive](http://job-boards.greenhouse.io/inceptive)
3. [cbinsights.com - Inceptive profile](https://www.cbinsights.com/company/inceptive)
4. [pitchbook.com - Inceptive profile](https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/495561-34)

## Other roles at Inceptive

- [Building the Experimental Engine for Models of Life](https://feeny.ai/job/building-the-experimental-engine-for-models-of-life-inceptive-palo-alto-s2n4k82x0ck8) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Data selection and quality evaluation for biological foundation models](https://feeny.ai/job/data-selection-and-quality-evaluation-for-biological-foundation-models-z1cpt3r5mnr4) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Computational design of biological experiments for model development](https://feeny.ai/job/computational-design-of-biological-experiments-for-model-development-inceptive-fqhxd5ef2mgb) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Secure Data Infrastructure for AI](https://feeny.ai/job/secure-data-infrastructure-for-ai-inceptive-berlin-j1j4rq3d43w8) — Berlin, Germany
- [Accelerating impact through partnerships](https://feeny.ai/job/accelerating-impact-through-partnerships-inceptive-palo-alto-etf7nd47r14a) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Foundation and generative models for biomolecules](https://feeny.ai/job/foundation-and-generative-models-for-biomolecules-inceptive-berlin-germany-or-hb7a3f5z7rea) — Berlin Germany OR Palo Alto CA OR Zurich, Switzerland
- [High-throughput data generation to advance ML design](https://feeny.ai/job/high-throughput-data-generation-to-advance-ml-design-inceptive-palo-alto-7qeq4fb84hgq) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Advancing Inceptive's commercial strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/advancing-inceptive-s-commercial-strategy-inceptive-palo-alto-s2v5zv9xftke) — Palo Alto, CA
- [Open Apply](https://feeny.ai/job/open-apply-inceptive-palo-alto-k5b609n7v26m) — Palo Alto, CA / Berlin, Germany / Zurich, Switzerland