Current openings at Arc Institute

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Arc is an independent research organization founded on the belief that many important research programs will be enabled by new institutional models. Arc operates in partnership with Stanford University, UCSF, and UC Berkeley. While the prevailing university research model has yielded many tremendous successes, we believe in the importance of institutional experimentation as a way to make progress. These include: Funding: Arc fully funds Core Investigators’ (PIs’) research groups, liberating scientists from the typical constraints of project-based external grants. Technology: Biomedical research has become increasingly dependent on complex tooling. Arc Technology Centers develop, optimize, and deploy rapidly advancing experimental and computational technologies in collaboration with Core Investigators.  Support: Arc aims to provide first-class support—operationally, financially, and scientifically—that will enable scientists to pursue long-term high risk, high reward research that can meaningfully advance progress in disease cures, including neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune dysfunction. Culture: We believe that culture matters enormously in science and that excellence is difficult to sustain. We aim to create a culture that is focused on scientific curiosity, a deep commitment to truth, broad ambition, and selfless collaboration. Arc has scaled to over 350 people to date. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly in the coming years. About the position The Jain Lab is looking for motivated, hard-working and curious applicants. At a high level, we study how organisms interact with their environments – how “what we breathe” and “what we eat” affects our metabolism and disease progression. More specifically, we are focused on oxygen and vitamin/cofactor metabolism. We recently discovered that chronic hypoxia (equivalent to living in the mountains of Peru or Nepal) can serve as a therapy for mitochondrial disease. This approach is currently in clinical trials. This work has inspired a broader set of research directions ranging from fundamental biochemistry to animal physiology. The questions we ask: How do cells and organisms sense oxygen or vitamin levels? Are there novel oxygen sensors and vitamin sensors to be found? How does the body adapt to variations in oxygen levels? Or vitamin levels? When the supply and demand of oxygen or vitamins becomes mismatched, how does this contribute to disease? Can we “turn the oxygen and vitamin dials” as creative new therapies? What is the most practical form of turning these concepts into translatable therapies? The approach we take: CRISPR screens, metabolomics, classical biochemistry/molecular biology, animal physiology and beyond. Post-docs will be encouraged to lead independent projects resulting in high impact publications, present at conferences and prepare for long-term careers in academia or industry. About you You are extremely curious and self-motivated to push the boundaries of biomedical research. You thrive in a fast-paced environment while conducting rigorous and impactful research. You are intellectually independent and are able to design new research directions and projects (with input from your PI). You are eager to learn and adapt new techniques. You are excited by solving puzzles that have a translational impact.  In this position you will Find new functions for enzymes or cofactors (vitamins) Contribute to our molecular understanding of how key metabolites are sensed by the body. Develop novel therapeutic strategies for nutrient-based therapies. Collaborate with post-docs and students to understand how enzymes and metabolites interact for key biochemical functions. Publish, present, and represent that lab in journals and conferences. Present at lab meetings, and participate in Arc-wide activities (seminars, symposiums, etc). Requirements PhD in metabolism, animal physiology, molecular biology, biochemistry, genomics, or related field  Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Demonstrated ability to work in a fast-paced environment and be both an independent thinker and a highly collaborative team player. The minimum base salary for this position is $80,000. Base salary for this role is determined by how many months of relevant postdoctoral experience a successful candidate has. Base salary for this role is not negotiable.

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution that conducts curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Arc is an independent research organization founded on the belief that many important research programs will be enabled by new institutional models. Arc operates in partnership with Stanford University, UCSF, and UC Berkeley. While the prevailing university research model has yielded many tremendous successes, we believe in the importance of institutional experimentation as a way to make progress. These include: Funding: Arc will fully fund Core Investigators’ (PIs’) research groups, liberating scientists from the typical constraints of project-based external grants. Technology: Biomedical research has become increasingly dependent on complex tooling. Arc Technology Centers develop, optimize and deploy rapidly advancing experimental and computational technologies in collaboration with Core Investigators.  Support: Arc aims to provide first-class support—operationally, financially and scientifically—that will enable scientists to pursue long-term high risk, high reward research that can meaningfully advance progress in disease cures, including neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune dysfunction. Culture: We believe that culture matters enormously in science and that excellence is difficult to sustain. We aim to create a culture that is focused on scientific curiosity, a deep commitment to truth, broad ambition, and selfless collaboration. Arc has scaled to over 350 people to date. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly in the coming years. About the position We are looking for an exceptional experienced machine learning scientist specializing in developing large-scale models. The ideal candidate will play a key role in constructing advanced machine learning models to predict cell state response to perturbations as part of Arc’s Virtual Cell Initiative. About you You are passionate about machine learning with real-world applications and scientific impact. You want to develop cutting-edge, biology-inspired, multimodal machine learning models. You are excited about collaborating with a multidisciplinary team of experimental biologists and machine learning engineers at Arc. You are a strong communicator, capable of translating complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences across disciplines  You are a continuous learner In this position, you will Build state-of-the-art AI models for understanding how cells respond to perturbation, in collaboration with other ML researchers, engineers and experimental scientists at Arc. Guide interdisciplinary teams towards successful delivery of reliable and robust machine learning models with clear scientific impact. Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in machine learning for computational biology, scope out new areas of work and ensure the models built at Arc remain state-of-the-art. Develop strategies for both training of models as well as the large-scale generation of new experimental data to train those models, as part of Arc’s Virtual Cell Initiative. Publish findings through journal publications, white papers, and presentations. Commit to a collaborative and inclusive team environment, sharing expertise, mentoring others and fostering collaborations. Job Requirements PhD in Computer Science, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Machine Learning, or a related field. Minimum of 3 years of experience post-PhD in building machine learning models for large datasets. Strong research background with contributions to machine learning conferences (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML) or interdisciplinary scientific journals (e.g., Nature, Nature Methods, Science). Well-versed in machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch. Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, with a strong track record of publications. Proven track record of communicating and collaborating with domain experts and ML engineers. Motivated to work in a fast-paced, ambitious, multi-disciplinary, and highly collaborative research environment. Preferred Qualifications Experience with training and scaling large-scale machine learning models. Strong foundation in software engineering with a proven ability to deliver machine learning products from research to production. Experience working with biological datasets including single-cell genomics, genomic sequences, bioimaging Demonstrated key contributions to the field of predictive modeling of cell states. The base salary range for this position is $235,000-$291,000. These amounts reflect the range of base salary that the Institute reasonably would expect to pay a new hire or internal candidate for this position. The actual base compensation paid to any individual for this position may vary depending on factors such as experience, market conditions, education/training, skill level, and whether the compensation is internally equitable, and does not include bonuses, commissions, differential pay, other forms of compensation, or benefits. This position is also eligible to receive an annual discretionary bonus, with the amount dependent on individual and institute performance factors.

About Arc Institute The Arc Institute is a new scientific institution conducting curiosity-driven basic science and technology development to understand and treat complex human diseases. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Arc is an independent research organization founded on the belief that many important research programs will be enabled by new institutional models. Arc operates in partnership with Stanford University, UCSF, and UC Berkeley. While the prevailing university research model has yielded many tremendous successes, we believe in the importance of institutional experimentation as a way to make progress. These include: Funding: Arc fully funds Core Investigators’ (PIs’) research groups, liberating scientists from the typical constraints of project-based external grants. Technology: Biomedical research has become increasingly dependent on complex tooling. Arc Technology Centers develop, optimize, and deploy rapidly advancing experimental and computational technologies in collaboration with Core Investigators.  Support: Arc aims to provide first-class support—operationally, financially, and scientifically—that will enable scientists to pursue long-term high risk, high reward research that can meaningfully advance progress in disease cures, including neurodegeneration, cancer, and immune dysfunction. Culture: We believe that culture matters enormously in science and that excellence is difficult to sustain. We aim to create a culture that is focused on scientific curiosity, a deep commitment to truth, broad ambition, and selfless collaboration. Arc has scaled to over 350 people to date. With $650M+ in committed funding and a state of the art new lab facility in Palo Alto, Arc will continue to grow quickly in the coming years. About the Position We are seeking an exceptional computational postdoctoral fellow to join the Konermann and Goodarzi laboratories at the Arc Institute. This is a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of AI/ML, functional genomics, precision medicine, and single cell multiomics to develop and apply cutting-edge machine learning tools for understanding causal drivers of complex biological systems. In this joint position, you will contribute to developing broadly applicable computational frameworks for integrating multi-omics data, building predictive models of cellular behavior, and scaling phenotypic discovery in disease-relevant contexts, such as Alzheimer’s disease. Your work will leverage Arc’s state-of-the-art experimental platforms and collaborative environment. About You You are passionate about using machine learning and computational approaches to tackle challenging problems in human biology and disease. You are excited to develop novel computational methods and frameworks that enable biological discovery at scale. You are creative and eager to move with the fast-paced nature of modern AI/ML, and to explore new approaches beyond traditional methods.  You enjoy working across disciplinary boundaries and integrating diverse data types. You work efficiently and write clean, well-documented code. You value reproducibility and good software engineering practices. You thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment where you can drive multiple projects forward in parallel. In This Position, You Will Develop and apply AI/ML frameworks for modeling multi-omics datasets, with emphasis on scalable approaches for phenotypic screening and disease modeling. Design and implement causal machine learning methods for predicting cellular states, drug responses, and disease phenotypes from genomic data. Collaborate closely with experimental teams to design studies, optimize protocols, and integrate computational and experimental workflows. Present research findings at internal meetings, seminars, and external conferences. Mentor junior researchers, graduate students, and contribute to Arc’s collaborative scientific culture. Publish high-impact research in leading scientific journals. Requirements PhD in Machine Learning, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Computer Science, Statistics, Bioengineering, or a related quantitative field. Strong publication record demonstrating expertise in computational analysis of genomics data, particularly single-cell technologies. Extensive experience with Python, machine learning frameworks, and distributed training, including active and well-maintained projects on public repositories. Experience with machine learning and statistical modeling, particularly applied to biological data. Strong understanding of molecular biology, with ability to design analyses that directly address biological questions. Proven ability to work independently and collaboratively in interdisciplinary teams. Excellent written and oral communication skills, with demonstrated ability to present complex computational work to diverse audiences. Track record of completing projects and publishing results in peer-reviewed journals. Preferred Qualifications Experience with pooled screening technologies (CRISPR screens, perturbation screens, drug screens) and associated computational modeling. Experience with multi-omics data integration and analysis. Experience with cloud computing and scalable data analysis workflows. Contributions to open-source software or publicly available computational tools. Experience with spatial transcriptomics or other emerging single-cell technologies. The minimum base salary for this position is $80,000. Base salary for this role is determined by how many months of relevant postdoctoral experience a successful candidate has. Base salary for this role is not negotiable.