---
title: 'Member of the Technical Staff at Absentia Labs'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-the-technical-staff-absentia-labs-boston-tjycedpf239r'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-09-15'
---

# Member of the Technical Staff at Absentia Labs

- **Company:** Absentia Labs
- **Location:** Boston, MA
- **Employment:** full-time
- **Work type:** hybrid
- **Posted:** 2026-06-08
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-09-15
- **Apply:** https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/absentia-labs/73b18a03-1058-4373-b51b-f685793cb4ea

## Job description

We are always looking for exceptional engineers interested in building the future of AI-enabled drug development, predictive biology, and computational safety infrastructure. If you are excited about working at the intersection of AI, biotech, translational medicine, and scalable scientific systems, we would love to hear from you.

## About the Role

Absentia Labs is building AI-driven mechanistic toxicology and translational safety infrastructure designed to improve how biological risk and organ-level toxicity are understood earlier in drug development. Our platform integrates large-scale biological, chemical, and experimental datasets to support predictive, human-relevant safety assessment and New Approach Methodologies (NAMs). We are looking for highly motivated engineers with broad backgrounds who are excited to solve technically challenging problems in AI, biology, infrastructure, and scientific computing. This is a general application for candidates who may fit current or future engineering needs as the company grows.

Areas of interest may include:

- Machine learning and AI infrastructure
- Computational biology and bioinformatics
- Backend and distributed systems
- Data engineering and data platforms
- Scientific software engineering
- Full-stack product engineering
- Cloud infrastructure and MLOps
- Applied AI research
- Visualization and scientific interfaces

## What We Look For

- Strong technical fundamentals and problem-solving ability
- Interest in mission-driven work within biotechnology and healthcare
- Ability to operate in fast-moving, ambiguous startup environments
- Curiosity, ownership, and willingness to learn across disciplines
- Experience building scalable systems, models, or products
- Strong communication and collaboration skills

## Nice to Have

- Experience in biotech, healthcare, life sciences, or scientific computing
- Familiarity with machine learning workflows or biological datasets
- Startup or early-stage company experience
- Interest in translational medicine, toxicology, or computational drug development

Location Hybrid and remote-friendly depending on role. Preference for candidates open to working closely with the founding team in Boston.

## Why Absentia Labs

- Work on scientifically meaningful problems with real-world impact
- Help shape a foundational platform at the intersection of AI and biology
- Collaborate with pharmaceutical, academic, and regulatory stakeholders
- Early-stage ownership and opportunity for outsized impact
- Mission-driven team focused on improving translational safety and reducing unnecessary animal testing

## About Absentia Labs

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Absentia Labs builds AI foundation models that predict how medicines behave inside the human body, aiming to replace traditional animal testing with in‑silico whole‑organism models and accelerate drug discovery.
- **Entity Type**: Private (early‑stage startup; backed by Milemark Capital and Kastor Capital)
- **Headquarters**: Boston, MA, USA
- **Founded**: November 2024
- **Founders**: Farhan Khodaee, Rohola Zandie, Robert Betancort

## Core Business
- **Primary industries**: Biotechnology, artificial intelligence for drug discovery, computational toxicology
- **Target customers**: B2B – pharmaceutical companies, biotech firms, and drug development organizations
- **Mission**: “Make human biology increasingly computable, help create safer medicines, reduce reliance on animal testing, and dramatically improve the speed and success rate of therapeutic innovation.”

## Products & Services
- **AI Foundation Models for Drug Behavior**: Large‑scale models that learn from biological, chemical, and clinical data to predict drug safety, efficacy, and behavior in the human body.
- **In‑Silico Whole‑Organism Platform**: Virtual drug testing environment designed to replace early‑stage animal studies with mechanistic, human‑relevant predictions.
- **Digital Liver Model (ISTAND‑qualified)**: An AI‑driven model accepted by the FDA into the ISTAND qualification program to help predict drug‑induced liver injury.
- **Organ‑specific Safety Risk Software**: Toxicological software that identifies organ‑specific risks early, translating preclinical data across species.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation**: Not publicly available
- **Key Metric (Funding)**: Early backing from Milemark Capital and Kastor Capital (amount not disclosed)
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: Milemark Capital, Kastor Capital
- **Growth Signals**:
  - FDA acceptance of Absentia’s AI‑driven digital liver model into the ISTAND qualification program (a major regulatory milestone)
  - Multiple research publications on aging, genotype‑phenotype mapping, and chemical space navigation
  - Active hiring across roles (GTM Engineer, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Head of Translational Science)
  - Spun out of MIT research

## Competitive Advantages
- **Foundation models that generalize across biology** – going beyond narrow dataset predictions to address fundamental biological processes.
- **FDA‑engaged digital liver model** – early regulatory validation for a key safety prediction tool.
- **Multidisciplinary team** merging frontier AI research with deep biological and drug‑development expertise.
- **Focus on replacing animal testing** – addressing ethical, cost, and translational challenges that plague traditional drug development.

## Strategic Focus
- Continue developing and validating AI foundation models for various organ systems.
- Expand the in‑silico platform to cover more safety and efficacy endpoints.
- Engage with regulators (e.g., ISTAND) to drive adoption of computational models in drug approval pipelines.
- Build partnerships with pharma and biotech companies to integrate models into early‑stage R&D.

## Why Work Here
- **Hybrid workspace** – employees work a combination of remote and on‑site in Boston offices.
- **Mission‑driven** – opportunity to make a tangible impact on drug safety and reduce animal testing.
- **Research‑forward culture** – team publishes academic work and attends the cutting edge of AI and biology.
- **Small, agile team** (approximately 7 employees) with close collaboration across disciplines.
- **Roles currently open**: GTM Engineer, Head of Strategic Partnerships, Head of Translational Science.

## Sources
1. [absentia.bio](https://www.absentia.bio/) – Company homepage, founding team, research
2. [builtin.com](https://builtin.com/company/absentia-labs) – Perks, culture, office policy, headcount, open roles
3. [pharmatechnews.com](https://pharmatechnews.com/absentia-labs-drug-discoverys-biggest-bottleneck/) – Launch announcement, investors, MIT spinout details
4. [github.com](https://github.com/absentia-labs) – Public repositories (Graphium, Zaira‑Chem, etc.)
5. [gust.com](https://gust.com/companies/absentia_labs) – Company summary, founding date, location, employee count

## Other roles at Absentia Labs

- [Senior AI / Machine Learning Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-ai-machine-learning-engineer-absentia-labs-boston-spb3d0xaxw7h) — Boston, MA
- [Member of the Technical Staff](https://feeny.ai/job/member-of-the-technical-staff-kiso-technology-san-francisco-ym0e89zty6jj) — San Francisco, CA