---
title: 'Senior Project Manager, Biologics R&D - Early Pipeline Programs at Xaira Therapeutics'
canonical: 'https://feeny.ai/job/senior-project-manager-biologics-r-d-early-pipeline-programs-xaira-therapeutics-36myc85pkttj'
type: 'job'
last_seen: '2026-10-19'
---

# Senior Project Manager, Biologics R&D - Early Pipeline Programs at Xaira Therapeutics

- **Company:** Xaira Therapeutics
- **Location:** South San Francisco, CA
- **Posted:** 2026-10-06
- **Last confirmed live:** 2026-10-19
- **Apply:** https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xairatherapeutics/jobs/5258559007

## Job description

## About Xaira Therapeutics

Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard-to-drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. Collectively, these technologies aim to continually enable the identification of novel therapies and to improve success in drug development. Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

## About the Role

We are seeking a Project Manager, Biologics R&D to support the planning and coordination of biologics programs and projects across our early pipeline, beginning with one of our prioritized programs and spanning additional discovery-stage programs, from early-stage discovery through lead optimization and lead selection, with growing support into IND-enabling studies as programs advance. This role is well-suited for a candidate with a strong scientific background who has transitioned into a project or program management role or who has taken on cross-functional project management responsibilities within research settings. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience in biologics R&D, with the ability to manage timelines, track deliverables, and partner closely with scientific leads to keep projects moving forward. You will partner closely with Program Team Leads, who own program strategy and scientific direction, and your counterpart on the lead program to ensure consistent program management practices across the portfolio.

This position emphasizes scientific understanding, team coordination, and milestone tracking, making it a strong fit for someone with a bench science background who has taken on increasing responsibility for project organization and cross-functional collaboration. This role is as comfortable managing single projects as they are multiple projects driving to the same program objective or milestone.

## Key Responsibilities

Project Planning and Execution

- Support day-to-day planning and coordination of biologics research programs, ensuring execution of key activities from discovery through lead selection and into IND-enabling work as programs advance.
- Build and maintain project timelines that capture critical path, major milestones, dependencies, and deliverables across multiple concurrent programs at different stages of maturity.
- Partner with scientific leads and functional stakeholders to align on scope, priorities, resources and progress.

Milestone Management & Decision Support

- Collaborate with scientific teams to define key project milestones, decisional experiments and translate into actionable, resource-informed timelines, including stage-transition criteria such as hit-to-lead and lead selection.
- Help compile project data, timelines, risks, value-realization, and trade-offs to support informed decision-making.
- Coordinate and facilitate planning and documentation of decisive experiments, and update project plans based on results and next steps.

Cross-Functional Project Coordination

- Facilitate cross-functional collaboration across research to ensure effective communication and documentation of decisions, alignment of priorities and timelines.
- Schedule and run cross-functional meetings, ensuring clear agendas, effective documentation, and follow-up on action items.
- Monitor interdependencies across functions and proactively identify, flag and resolve conflicts across workstreams.
- Coordinate outsourced workstreams with CROs/CDMOs where applicable, including timeline integration and deliverable tracking.

Operational Support & Project Monitoring

- Track project status, risks, and mitigation strategies; provide updates to internal stakeholders. Provide related insights and recommendations
- Coordinate with functional leads to understand resource needs and potential impacts to timelines.
- Contribute to scenario planning and contingency thinking for critical path activities
- Identify operational challenges and recommend improvements to enhance efficiency and coordination.

Resource Coordination & Timeline Scenarios

- Work closely with functional and team leads to understand resourcing needs, identify gaps and timeline impacts, including trade-offs across programs as well as within them.
- Develop scenario plans for critical path development decisions to support contingency and investment planning to address potential delays, bottlenecks, or shifts in scope.

## Qualifications

- Advanced degree (MS, PhD, or equivalent) in life sciences or a related field strongly preferred.
- Minimum of 6+ years of industry experience, including hands-on biologics or drug discovery research with demonstrated project or timeline management responsibilities; 3+ years of project management or cross-functional project leadership within research settings preferred.
- Experience supporting biologics discovery programs through stages such as target validation, hit discovery, and lead optimization; exposure to lead selection governance or IND-enabling workstreams (developability, nonclinical safety, early CMC) is a strong plus.
- Solid understanding of biologics discovery processes; familiarity with downstream nonclinical, CMC, and regulatory components is a plus.
- Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills; able to translate complex scientific ideas into clear plans.
- Excellent communication, time management collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
- Experience with basic project tracking tools (Smartsheet, Confluence, Google Workspace, etc).
- Working familiarity with project and program management principles as defined by the Program Management Institute (PMI) or similar bodies.  PMP, CAPM, or PMI-ACP certifications are a plus, but note hands on experience matters more than the credential itself.
- Please note that this position will be required to be on-site in the SSF office. Remote candidates will not be considered.

## Preferred Attributes

- Comfortable managing projects in a start-up environment which is fast-paced, cross-functional, and where processes are still being built.
- Demonstrated ability to lead without authority and influence diverse teams.
- Passion for science and dedication to improving patient outcomes through innovative biologics development.
- Growth mindset with interest in advancing alongside programs as they mature toward IND-enabling development.

## Compensation

We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, seeking to provide an open, flexible, and friendly work environment to empower employees and provide them with a platform to develop their long-term careers. A Summary of Benefits is available for all applicants. We offer a competitive package that includes base salary, bonus, and equity.  The base pay range for this position is expected to be $148,000 - $185,000 annually; however, the base pay offered may vary depending on the market, job-related knowledge, skills and capabilities, and experience.

Xaira Therapeutics an equal-opportunity employer. We believe that our strength is in our differences. Our goal to build a diverse and inclusive team began on day one, and it will never end.

TO ALL RECRUITMENT AGENCIES: Xaira Therapeutics does not accept agency resumes. Please do not forward resumes to our jobs alias or employees. Xaira Therapeutics is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited resumes.

## About Xaira Therapeutics

## Company Overview
- **One-liner**: Xaira Therapeutics is an integrated biotechnology company applying artificial intelligence across the entire drug discovery and development process to design next-generation medicines.
- **Entity Type**: Private (Series A)
- **Headquarters**: South San Francisco, California, United States (with offices in Seattle, Washington, and London, UK)
- **Founded**: 2023
- **Founders**: Co-founded and incubated by ARCH Venture Partners and Foresite Labs, with foundational scientific contributions from Nobel Laureate Dr. David Baker (Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington).

## Core Business
- **Primary industry/industries**: Biotechnology, Drug Discovery & Development, Artificial Intelligence
- **Target customers**: B2B (pharmaceutical partners, biotech collaborators) and ultimately patients via its own therapeutic pipeline.
- **Mission or purpose statement**: "Pioneering the transformative artificial intelligence that will help discover and develop the next generation of life-changing medicines." [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/)

## Products & Services
- **AI-Powered Drug Discovery Platform**: An end-to-end platform integrating advanced AI research, expansive data generation (functional genomics, proteomics, multi-omics), and robust therapeutic product development to shift drug discovery from an empirical science to a precise engineering discipline. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-approach)
- **Computational Protein Design**: Built on foundational work by Nobel Laureate Dr. David Baker, leveraging AI to design entirely new proteins from scratch for previously undruggable targets. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-approach)
- **X-Cell (Virtual Cell Model)**: An AI model trained on billions of genomic data points to simulate and understand cellular biology. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/)
- **Therapeutic Pipeline**: A pipeline of differentiated therapeutics across multiple modalities (small molecules, biologics, protein therapeutics) developed through an integrated AI-driven process.

## Market Standing
- **Valuation/Market Cap**: Not publicly disclosed. The company launched in 2023 with a $1 billion Series A financing, one of the largest in biotech history.
- **Key Metric**: Total Funding of $1 billion (Series A, 2023).
- **Notable Investors/Partners**: ARCH Venture Partners (co-founder and lead investor), Foresite Labs (co-founder and incubator), F-Prime Capital, and other top-tier investors. Board includes leaders from ARCH, Foresite, NEA, and Johnson & Johnson. Scientific advisors include Nobel Laureates Carolyn R. Bertozzi and David Baker, and other luminaries. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-team)
- **Growth Signals**: Launched in 2023 with a record $1B Series A; rapidly building a world-class team across three global hubs (South San Francisco, Seattle, London); actively hiring across AI, computational biology, protein design, and drug development roles; announced X-Cell, a virtual cell model trained on billions of genomic data points. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/)

## Competitive Advantages
- **Unprecedented Capital & Talent**: Launched with a $1B Series A, enabling aggressive hiring of top-tier AI and biology talent and long-term investment in infrastructure.
- **End-to-End AI Integration**: Uniquely positioned to apply AI across the entire drug discovery and development lifecycle, from target identification to clinical development, creating a powerful data flywheel.
- **World-Class Scientific Foundation**: Built on foundational AI protein design work from Nobel Laureate David Baker's lab, with a board and advisory board including multiple Nobel Laureates, former FDA commissioners, and industry leaders from Genentech, Johnson & Johnson, and top venture firms. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-team)
- **Massive Data Generation**: Investing heavily in functional genomics and proteomics to generate proprietary, multi-dimensional datasets that fuel AI model development, creating a defensible data moat.

## Strategic Focus
- **End-to-End AI Integration**: Building predictive and agentic AI models across the complete drug discovery and development spectrum to increase probability of success, reduce timelines, and lower costs. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-approach)
- **Data as a Core Asset**: Generating and integrating massive, multi-dimensional biological datasets (from molecular to human scales) to train and improve AI models continuously.
- **Pipeline Development**: Advancing a pipeline of differentiated therapeutics across multiple modalities (small molecules, biologics, protein therapeutics).
- **Talent Acquisition**: Aggressively hiring across AI research, engineering, computational biology, protein design, and drug development to build a world-class, interdisciplinary team.

## Why Work Here
- **Mission-Driven**: Opportunity to work at the forefront of AI and biology to fundamentally transform how medicines are discovered and developed, with the potential to impact millions of patients.
- **World-Class Team & Mentorship**: Work alongside and learn from Nobel Laureates, top AI researchers, and experienced drug developers from leading pharma and biotech companies. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-team)
- **Interdisciplinary Culture**: A unique blend of AI/ML engineers, protein designers, computational biologists, and drug hunters all working together in a highly collaborative environment.
- **Global Hubs & Flexibility**: Offices in South San Francisco, Seattle, and London, offering multiple locations for talent.
- **Generous Resources**: Backed by a $1B Series A, providing the resources to pursue ambitious, long-term research without short-term funding pressure.
- **Job Scam Awareness**: The company has issued a warning about fraudulent job offers; all legitimate recruitment is conducted through official channels (Greenhouse) and never via Google Chat or requests for payment. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/work-with-us)

## Sources
1. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/)
2. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-approach)
3. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/our-team)
4. [xaira.com](https://www.xaira.com/work-with-us)
5. [greenhouse.io](https://job-boards.greenhouse.io/xairatherapeutics)

## Other roles at Xaira Therapeutics

- [Principal Scientist, Target Discovery & Portfolio Strategy](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-scientist-target-discovery-portfolio-strategy-xaira-therapeutics-e1120npv099c) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Scientist, Antibody Characterization](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-scientist-antibody-characterization-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-28jxkpddcby2) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Vice President, Clinical Development, Oncology](https://feeny.ai/job/vice-president-clinical-development-oncology-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-nwq8tfzcf3d0) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Senior Director, Clinical Operations](https://feeny.ai/job/senior-director-clinical-operations-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-nrx5ytj3me96) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Principal Scientist, Protein Engineering](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-scientist-protein-engineering-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-2dwzf5jmc3sv) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Procurement Manager](https://feeny.ai/job/procurement-manager-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-368fe4j3aymx) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Research Associate / Senior Research Associate, Genomic Core](https://feeny.ai/job/research-associate-senior-research-associate-genomic-core-xaira-therapeutics-ds5ts7k1r4px) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Scientist II, High Throughput Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/scientist-ii-high-throughput-biology-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-dp58zy18q1wd) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Principal Scientist, Biology](https://feeny.ai/job/principal-scientist-biology-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-2azp7k7sb0b2) — South San Francisco, CA
- [Lab Software Engineer](https://feeny.ai/job/lab-software-engineer-xaira-therapeutics-south-san-francisco-mt9p82bbxdfp) — South San Francisco, CA