Job description
Your work will change lives. Including your own.
The Impact You’ll Make
Recursion is at the forefront of reimagining drug discovery by integrating technological innovations across biology, chemistry, automation, data science, and engineering to radically improve lives by industrializing drug discovery. We are seeking an experienced Associate Director to join our Discovery Biology team to lead and advance our AI-driven portfolio of therapeutic candidates.
This is a truly unique opportunity to work at the dynamic intersection of technology and biology. You won’t just manage projects and key initiatives; you will be an active catalyst contributing to the evolution of a new, powerful paradigm in medicine.
In this Role, You Will:
- Play a critical role in defining and executing our oncology strategy, seamlessly integrating traditional drug discovery principles with cutting-edge computational approaches.
- Lead scientific initiatives focused on successfully delivering various small molecule programs from initial hit to candidate selection and IND submission.
- Contribute to novel target insight generation, patient refinement and patient selection strategies within several early discovery programs and have the opportunity to improve the Recursion OS itself.
The Team You’ll Join
You will be an integral part of the Discovery team, working collaboratively with a diverse group of life scientists, computational and technical experts. You will work cross-functionally with team members from various disciplines, including data science, computational biology, pharmacology, DMPK, and chemistry, to accelerate the progression of compounds through the portfolio. This team is responsible for guiding the foundational biology and the critical “tech-to-program” translation across our early Discovery oncology portfolio.
The Experience You’ll Need
- PhD in a relevant biological or chemical science discipline (e.g., Molecular Biology, Oncology, Pharmacology, Biochemistry) with at least 5+ years of experience in Tech-forward Biotech or Pharma
- A proven track record of accomplishments in drug discovery, with specific experience in leading oncology programs from early discovery to a clinical candidate stage
- Demonstrated experience with modern drug discovery approaches, including familiarity with AI/ML-driven platforms and models, high-throughput screening, omics data analysis, with a systems biology mindset.
- Strong understanding of the oncology landscape, including key therapeutic modalities, emerging targets, and clinical development challenges.
- Exceptional leadership and interpersonal skills, with the ability to lead and motivate high-performing, cross-functional teams in a fast-paced, matrix environment.
- Demonstrated ability to deliver impactful, clear presentations and memos to a wide range of audiences, including the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), program teams, Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), and external partners.A strategic and tactical thinker who can prioritize competing demands and solve complex problems with a solution-focused mindset.
Working Location:
This is an office-based, hybrid role in our Salt Lake City / New York City office. Employees are expected to work in the office at least 50% of the time.
At Recursion, we believe that every employee should be compensated fairly. Based on the skill and level of experience required for this role, the estimated current annual base range for this role is $149,800 - $205,700 (USD). You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package.
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The Values We Hope You Share:
- We act boldly with integrity. We are unconstrained in our thinking, take calculated risks, and push boundaries, but never at the expense of ethics, science, or trust.
- We care deeply and engage directly. Caring means holding a deep sense of responsibility and respect - showing up, speaking honestly, and taking action.
- We learn actively and adapt rapidly. Progress comes from doing. We experiment, test, and refine, embracing iteration over perfection.
- We move with urgency because patients are waiting. Speed isn’t about rushing but about moving the needle every day.
- We take ownership and accountability. Through ownership and accountability, we enable trust and autonomy—leaders take accountability for decisive action, and teams own outcomes together.
- We are One Recursion. True cross-functional collaboration is about trust, clarity, humility, and impact. Through sharing, we can be greater than the sum of our individual capabilities.
Our values underpin the employee experience at Recursion. They are the character and personality of the company demonstrated through how we communicate, support one another, spend our time, make decisions, and celebrate collectively.
More About Recursion
Recursion (NASDAQ: RXRX) is a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to radically improve lives. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, a platform built across diverse technologies that continuously generate one of the world’s largest proprietary biological and chemical datasets. Recursion leverages sophisticated machine-learning algorithms to distill from its dataset a collection of trillions of searchable relationships across biology and chemistry unconstrained by human bias. By commanding massive experimental scale — up to millions of wet lab experiments weekly — and massive computational scale — owning and operating one of the most powerful supercomputers in the world, Recursion is uniting technology, biology and chemistry to advance the future of medicine.
Recursion is headquartered in Salt Lake City, where it is a founding member of BioHive, the Utah life sciences industry collective. Recursion also has offices in Toronto, Montréal, New York, London, Oxford area, and the San Francisco Bay area. Learn more at www.Recursion.com, or connect on X (formerly Twitter) and LinkedIn.
Recursion is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, local, or provincial human rights legislation.
Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.
