Associate Director / Director, Customer Program Management, Life Sciences

lilasciences

Cambridge, MA USA · Cambridge

Posted Mar 17, 2026

Full-time
Corporate Development

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Job description

Your Impact at LILA

Lila Sciences is looking for an Associate Director / Director, Program Management, Life Sciences — a senior operator who will drive the planning, execution, and delivery of therapeutic programs on Lila's platform. This person will provide direct project management leadership to the internal science, engineering, and automation teams developing molecules for our partners, owning timelines, resourcing, and progress tracking across complex, multidisciplinary programs. They will also serve as a senior operational interface with our pharmaceutical and biotech partners, ensuring that deliverables, governance, and communication are running smoothly.

These programs carry significant scientific complexity and commercial stakes. This role requires someone who can drive execution across fast-moving, technically demanding programs from the inside while maintaining the partner-facing judgment and presence to keep external stakeholders informed and aligned.

What You'll Be Building

Own end-to-end project management for active therapeutic programs, including timeline development, resource coordination, milestone tracking, and dependency management across product, science, machine learning and automation teams
Drive day-to-day execution discipline; ensuring that internal teams have clear priorities, deliverables, and decision points, and that blockers are identified and resolved quickly
Manage resource allocation discussions and trade-off decisions across a complex set of priorities (e.g., balancing experiments between AI model training and near-term partnership deliverables)
Establish and maintain program-level reporting, including status updates, milestone tracking, and resource utilization views for internal leadership and external deliverables
Proactively identify, communicate, and manage program risks, escalating appropriately and ensuring transparency with scientific and executive leadership
Structure and facilitate effective internal program meetings, decision forums, and reviews; ensuring the right information reaches the right people at the right time

Partner-Facing Delivery

Serve as the primary operational interface with partner organizations, coordinating joint governance, managing deliverable timelines, and driving alignment on milestones and expectations
Translate internal program status into clear, structured updates for external partners, ensuring transparency without overexposing internal complexity
Support alliance obligations including joint steering committees, milestone reporting, and deliverable handoffs
Partner closely with scientific and product leadership to ensure that program plans reflect both Lila's platform capabilities and partner-specific program goals and business objectives

Process & Scale

Lead the development of scalable project management practices, templates, and tools as Lila's partnership portfolio grows
Help build repeatable operating models for how Lila plans, tracks, and delivers partner programs

What You’ll Need to Succeed

8+ years of experience in the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industry in roles associated with drug discovery or development, project management, or operations
5+ years in program management, project management, or a similar cross-functional coordination role with direct responsibility for timelines, resourcing, and tracking
Demonstrated ability to independently drive execution across complex, multidisciplinary programs with significant scientific and commercial stakes
Strong understanding of drug discovery and development processes; ability to engage credibly with scientific stakeholders and communicate at a high level across therapeutic and technical domains
Experience managing programs with external partners, including milestone management, governance, and stakeholder communication
Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to distill complex scientific and operational information for diverse audiences including executive leadership and external partners
Proven ability to influence without authority and drive alignment across cross-functional teams

Bonus Points For

Experience working at or partnering with AI-native or platform-based drug discovery companies
Experience managing external collaborations in a discovery or preclinical setting (alliance management, CRO/CDMO oversight, or joint research programs)
Familiarity with project management tools and methodologies (e.g., critical path analysis, scenario planning, resource management, portfolio reporting)
Familiarity with the rapid evolution of LLMs and AI-driven science platforms and a perspective on how this will impact partnership models in drug discovery

Compensation

We offer competitive base compensation with bonus potential and generous early-stage equity. Your final offer will reflect your background, expertise, and expected impact.

U.S. Benefits. Full-time U.S. employees receive a comprehensive benefits program including medical, dental, and vision coverage; employer-paid life and disability insurance; flexible time off with generous company wide holidays; paid parental leave; an educational assistance program; commuter benefits, including bike share memberships for office based employees; and a company subsidized lunch program.

International Benefits. Full-time employees outside the U.S. receive a comprehensive benefits program tailored to their region. USD salary ranges apply only to U.S.-based positions; international salaries are set to local market.

Expected Base Salary Range

$148,000—$224,000 USD

About LILA

Lila Sciences is building Scientific Superintelligence™ to solve humankind's greatest challenges. We believe science is the most inspiring frontier for AI. Rather than hard-coding expert knowledge into tools, LILA builds systems that can learn for themselves.

LILA combines advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments into an operating system for science that executes the entire scientific method autonomously, accelerating discovery at unprecedented speed, scale, and impact across medicine, materials, and energy. Learn more at www.lila.ai.

Guided by our core values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity, we move with startup speed while tackling problems of historic importance. If this sounds like an environment you'd love to work in, even if you don't meet every qualification listed above, we encourage you to apply.

We’re All In

Lila Sciences is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.

Information you provide during your application process will be handled in accordance with our Candidate Privacy Policy.

A Note to Agencies

Lila Sciences does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Lila Sciences or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Lila Science’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Lila Sciences, and Lila Sciences will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.