---
title: 'Member of Technical Staff - Applied AI Engineer at Valthos'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-technical-staff-applied-ai-engineer-valthos-new-york-x22v06zd45cs'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-11'
---

# Member of Technical Staff - Applied AI Engineer at Valthos

- **Company:** Valthos
- **Location:** New York, NY
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** onsite
- **Posted:** 2025-08-29
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-11
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/valthos/ace82983-1564-47d0-a328-74c3bd9d03c8

## Job description

Applied AI Engineer Valthos Inc.

Valthos is an applied biological intelligence company. We build and deploy software and biological AI systems to safeguard humanity. The same AI architectures that enable self-driving cars, land rockets with precision, and deliver expert-level reasoning are beginning to be deployed in biological design. To stay ahead, we must advance our arsenal of tools to capture and design against real-time sensitivities in nature’s evolving mutational landscape. We are a group of mission-driven software engineers from Palantir and applied biological ML engineers from MIT’s Broad Institute and DeepMind making the latest advances in computational biology accessible in the real-world for federal and commercial use.

We are seeking a highly skilled, data-centric AI Engineer to develop and apply state-of-the-art ML methods for assessing and responding to biological threats and for rapidly designing precision biologics.

## The Role

- Contribute to crafting and executing on the Valthos-wide research and development roadmap
- Develop, build, and apply modeling approaches—including adapting and post-training biological frontier models—for tasks in biological security and the design of precision biologics
- Develop, build, and apply evaluation frameworks to rigorously assess model performance on key tasks
- Interrogate models to understand their biological learnings, capabilities, and limitations
- Collaborate closely with computational biologists to understand the signal and artifacts inherent in biological data, and to create and curate datasets
- Collaborate closely with software engineers to build, deploy, and scale model training and evaluation infrastructure
- Visualize and communicate results within Valthos and externally
- Work with customers and external collaborators to understand their needs and be an effective representative of Valthos
- Embrace learning about areas—technical and non-technical—across Valthos
- Stay up-to-date on the state-of-the-art methods at the intersection of AI and biology

## Qualifications (required)

- Experience with data-centric development and evaluation of ML models
- Highly proficient in Python and deep learning libraries (e.g., PyTorch)
- Experience with cloud computing platforms (e.g., AWS) and distributed systems
- Strong understanding of probability and statistics

## Qualifications (preferred)

- Proven ability to design, implement, and evaluate new ideas in ML
- Experience with pre- or post-training language models, developing reasoning agents, and/or time series modeling
- Experience working with biological data or other types of noisy and heterogenous datasets
- Experience with ML-centric bioinformatics and structure-based tools (e.g., AlphaFold)
- Experience building data pipelining and training infrastructure
- Contributions to open-source projects

If there is a fit, we'll schedule two technical interviews. The final step is an onsite in our office, where you'll work on a small project, discuss ideas, and work with the wider team.

## About Valthos

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Valthos builds frontier AI systems that identify biological threats and design medical countermeasures in real time, strengthening biodefense for government and life sciences stakeholders.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Seed stage – $30M raised)
- **Headquarters**: New York, New York, United States
- **Founded**: 2024
- **Founders**: Kathleen McMahon (Co-Founder & CEO) and Tess van Stekelenburg (Co-Founder & President)

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Biodefense, Artificial Intelligence, Biotechnology
- **Target customers**: Government agencies (biodefense, national security) and life sciences organizations (pharma, biotech, public health)
- **Mission or purpose statement**: To build next-generation biodefense by developing AI systems that can rapidly characterize biological sequences and design adaptive medical countermeasures, ensuring threats are neutralized as fast as they emerge.

## Products & Services
- **Frontier AI Biodefense Platform**: A software infrastructure that harnesses computational methods to characterize biological sequences and compress the time to design medical countermeasures. The platform is designed for experts in government and life sciences to detect and mitigate biological threats with speed and precision. Type: AI/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for defense and biosecurity.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not disclosed (Private company)
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding – $30 million (Seed round, announced October 29, 2025)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: OpenAI Startup Fund, Lux Capital, Founders Fund. Additional support from investors including OpenAI, Lux Capital, Founders Fund, and more.
- **Growth Signals**: 
  - Raised $30M seed financing from top-tier investors (OpenAI, Lux, Founders Fund) signaling strong institutional confidence.
  - Founding team drawn from Palantir, DeepMind, Broad Institute, and Arc Institute.
  - Actively hiring across 12+ open positions (Applied AI, Software Engineering, Computational Biology, Operations) as of mid-2025.
  - LinkedIn follower growth of +10.7% monthly, indicating increasing brand awareness.

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unique positioning at the intersection of AI and biodefense**: Addresses a critical, high-stakes niche that few startups target.
- **World-class founding team**: CEO Kathleen McMahon previously led Palantir’s Life Sciences division; President Tess van Stekelenburg is a partner at Lux Capital. Technical leads come from DeepMind, Broad Institute, and Arc Institute.
- **Backing from AI and defense leaders**: OpenAI, Lux Capital, and Founders Fund provide both capital and strategic credibility.
- **First-mover in adaptive countermeasure design**: The platform aims to update medical countermeasures in real time, solving the asymmetry problem where pathogens can be created faster than cures.

## Strategic Focus
- **Scale software infrastructure** for government and commercial biodefense stakeholders.
- **Expand engineering and research teams** – currently hiring for applied AI, forward deployed engineers, computational biologists, and operations roles.
- **Deepen partnerships** with government agencies and life sciences organizations to deploy the platform against emerging biological threats.
- **Lay groundwork for adaptive, precision therapeutics** beyond immediate biodefense applications.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-driven work**: Directly contribute to protecting humanity from biological threats – a high-impact, urgent problem.
- **Elite team environment**: Work alongside engineers and scientists from Palantir, DeepMind, Broad Institute, and Arc Institute.
- **Strong backing and resources**: $30M seed funding from top-tier investors provides runway and stability.
- **In-office culture**: Valthos operates from a physical office in New York, NY, with an in-office expectation (as per Built In profile).
- **Growth opportunities**: Early-stage company with 8–10 employees and 12+ open roles – new hires will shape the company’s technical and operational direction.
- **Notable perks**: Not explicitly listed, but typical early-stage startup benefits (equity, competitive comp) likely apply. Emphasis on engineering and biotech talent.

## Sources
1. [valthos.com](https://valthos.com/)
2. [valthos.com/blog/intro](https://valthos.com/blog/intro)
3. [LinkedIn – Valthos](https://www.linkedin.com/company/valthos)
4. [PRNewswire – Valthos Raises $30M](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/valthos-raises-30m-from-openai-lux-capital-founders-fund-to-build-next-generation-biodefense-302598583.html)
5. [Built In – Valthos Careers](https://builtin.com/company/valthos)

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