Sr. Principal or Distinguished ML Scientist

Your Impact at LILA

Lila is building a platform where AI and automation co-evolve to solve the hardest problems in medicine. Within Life Science AI (LSAI), we are launching a new AI for Cell Biology team to develop autonomous-science capabilities for cellular and tissue biology; spanning single-cell omics, perturbation biology, spatial profiling, imaging, genetics, and multi-modal experimental data that integrate deep biological expertise with foundation modeling and agentic systems. We are seeking a Sr. Principal or Distinguished ML Scientist to be the founding senior ML Scientist on this team. This is a 0→1 leadership-grade role with a clear, complementary partnership at the top of the team. You will co-develop the team's scientific direction with the VP of AI for Cell Biology, and you will own the integration of cell-biology research with Lila's central autonomous-science platform — the foundation-model, agentic-systems, and experimental-automation infrastructure that closes the loop between AI reasoning and the lab. Where the VP carries cross-functional implementation (applications, commercial activities, and the operating interfaces with our autonomous-lab and product teams), you carry the technical architecture by which cell-biology research becomes part of Lila's broader autonomous-science capability.

Cell- and tissue-scale biology sits at an open frontier of AI for science. The field has produced strong specialist models across sub-domains — single-cell foundation models, structural prediction, perturbation response, cellular imaging, pathway and ligand–receptor inference — but the architecture for system-level reasoning that ties these together, grounds them in experimental reality, and produces actionable mechanism-of-action hypotheses is still being defined. We have a working point of view on that architecture and on how Lila's autonomous-science platform extends to cellular biology; you will refine, challenge, or replace it. The architectural choices you make alongside the VP will shape what Lab-in-the-Loop autonomous science looks like at cell and tissue scale. This is a senior role for someone operating at the frontier of generative AI applied to biology, with the scientific judgment to define research strategy and the technical depth to drive end-to-end the architecture that integrates cell-biology research with our autonomous-science platform.

What You'll Be Building

• Co-develop the scientific direction.
• Own integration with Lila's central autonomous-science platform.
• Lead the foundation-model and integration architecture.
• Lead agentic discovery.
• Own the cross-program evaluation architecture.
• Translate between biology and ML.
• Carry the scientific narrative.

What You'll Need to Succeed

• Education.
• Research excellence.
• Foundation modeling and systems integration depth.
• Agentic and autonomous-science systems experience.
• Cell- and tissue-biology fluency.
• Co-authorship of research strategy.
• Cross-functional collaboration.
• Tooling.

Bonus Points For

• Experience composing specialist biology models (e.g., sequence-to-function models, single-cell foundation models, structural prediction models, perturbation models, imaging models) into multi-step reasoning systems.
• Experience with closed-loop or Lab-in-the-Loop workflows where computational predictions drive experimental decisions and experimental results retrain or retune models.
• Experience with large-scale distributed training infrastructure (cloud or on-prem clusters) — useful but not required, since this role primarily consumes rather than operates such infrastructure.
• Contributions to open-source ML tools, frameworks, or benchmark datasets for scientific (especially cell-biology) applications.
• Track record of recruiting, mentoring, or growing high-performing ML research talent.
• Experience presenting strategic technical visions to executive stakeholders or external scientific communities.

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.

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.