Senior Director, Computational Drug Discovery
Apheris
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Remote
Location: New York • United States
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Job Level
About the role
- Own scientific direction across modalities, data, and workflows.
- Define which drug discovery problems, modalities, and data types Apheris prioritizes with our product offerings.
- Guide how applications and models should evolve to remain maximally useful to pharma teams.
- Own the “why” and high-level structure of new scientific initiatives and proposals, while partnering closely with internal ML and science teams on detailed methodology and execution.
- Build and lead an established, growing computational drug discovery team.
- Lead a core team already in place, including a senior medicinal chemist and a forward-deployed scientist, both with top-tier academic and industry backgrounds.
- Set clear direction and execution standards across all customer-facing programs.
- Oversee scientific quality and program enablement rather than personally owning detailed technical implementation.
- Engage comfortably and credibly with leading computational drug discovery scientists at large pharmaceutical companies.
- Lead deep scientific discussions on program strategy, model application, and decision-making trade-offs.
- Serve as the visible scientific face to customers, including at senior leadership level.
- Build trust and credibility through talks and direct engagement with the community.
Requirements
- PhD in computational chemistry, cheminformatics, computational drug discovery, or a closely related field.
- 8 + years of post-PhD industry experience in computational drug discovery or computational chemistry, including proven impact on drug discovery programs from hit finding through lead optimization.
- Strong practical understanding of structure-based and ligand-based design, ADMET modelling, and integration of experimental and biophysical data in real drug programs.
- Solid understanding of modern ML approaches in drug discovery, with sound judgment on where ML materially improves outcomes.
- Strong scientific credibility, demonstrated through prior roles at leading pharma, top-tier biotech, or recognized computational drug discovery technology providers, and ideally a solid publication record.
- Demonstrated experience leading and mentoring computational drug discovery teams.
- Comfortable operating hands-on in a fast-moving, venture-backed, remote-first environment.
- Clear motivation to enable customer drug discovery programs rather than run internal pipelines.
Benefits
- Competitive compensation, including meaningful early-stage virtual share options
- Generous holiday allowance
- Great suite of benefits, including a wellbeing budget, mental health benefits, a work-from-home budget, a co-working stipend and a learning and development budget.
- Remote-first working – work where you work best, whether from home or a co-working space near you
- Office Days at our Berlin HQ or a different European location (3x a year)
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
computational chemistrycheminformaticscomputational drug discoverystructure-based designligand-based designADMET modellingmachine learningdata integrationdrug discovery programslead optimization
Soft Skills
leadershipmentoringcommunicationstrategic thinkingcredibilitytrust buildingcollaborationcustomer engagementscientific discussiondecision-making
Certifications
PhD