Associate Scientist, Phage Display (Contract)

xairatherapeutics

South San Francisco, California, United States · South San Francisco · United States

Posted Mar 4, 2026

Contract
Drug Discovery & Development

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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

You are an enthusiastic protein biochemist who takes pride in your bench execution skills. Your passion lies in display technology, drug discovery and developing novel treatments for patients. You are conscientious, detail-oriented, and organized. Collaboration comes naturally to you, and you thrive in a fast-paced environment where pushing the boundaries of what is possible is the norm.

Responsibilities

Build, adapt, and automate display systems to facilitate AI antibody design.
Establish, develop, and/or optimize cutting edge technologies to enable data generation at scale for AI model training or evaluation
Design and apply multiple innovative selection techniques to provide data at scale based on ML training needs.
Design, setup, optimize, and use automation to characterize affinity and function at the clonal level.
Contribute to the preparation of technical reports and presentations.

Qualifications

Significant hands-on experience with protein discovery workflows including phage or yeast display. Experience in library design, build, panning/sorting and validation.
Bachelor of Science or Master’s degree in Molecular Biology, Biology, Biochemistry, or related fields with 2-6 years of industrial experience. .
Familiarity with antibody binding assays and automating them (ELISA, SPR, FACS).
Proficiency in molecular and cell biology techniques, including mammalian tissue cell culture, and basic skills in molecular biology labs.
Working knowledge of software and programming for large data set analysis.
Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills, with meticulous attention to detail.
Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to effectively present complex scientific concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
Ability to work effectively in a collaborative, multidisciplinary team environment, fostering cooperation and knowledge-sharing among team members

Schedule Flexibility: Due to the nature of experimental workflows, this role will require availability on weekends (approximately every couple of weeks).

Employment Type: Contract

Expected Contract Duration: 7 Months

The base pay range for this position is expected to be $45-$60 hourly; 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.