Senior Computational Biologist – Target ID

Your work will change lives. Including your own. 

The Impact You’ll Make

As a computational biology specialist on our Target ID team, you will be at the forefront of transitioning Recursion to its next era of drug discovery. You will serve as a critical biological anchor for a highly technical data science team building the next generation of our target discovery pipelines.

The team’s mission is to identify novel therapeutic targets at scale across the genome for hundreds of indications. You will have access to all of Recursion's data layers—including massive internal maps, functional genomics, and rich patient data (transcriptomics, genetics, and Real-World Data/EHR)—and will be tasked with proposing, piloting, and deploying new methods to integrate these datasets.

Crucially, you will leverage your biological subject matter expertise to orient and focus your data scientist and software engineer peers towards reliable and correct usage of biological data and feasible candidate programs. As we build out semi-automated and agentic tools (e.g., multi-agent LLM systems for portfolio oversight and target assessment), your deep real-world biology experience will guide the development of these tools, ensuring they are grounded in biological reality and translate to meaningful portfolio and patient impact.

The ideal candidate is a computational biology specialist with high fluency in data science tech stacks. You know how to build and evaluate predictive models and build agentic pipelines, and your differentiator is your deep understanding of patient-relevant datasets, disease biology, and target discovery.

In this role, you will:

• Discover & Evaluate: Propose and validate novel targets using deep integration of patient data (transcriptomics, population genetics, EHR, etc) and Recursion's internal multi-omic data layers.
• Guide & Automate: Collaborate closely with data scientists to build, refine, and guide semi-automated and agentic target discovery tools. You will ensure these tools are biologically sound and can scale to evaluate hypotheses across many indications spanning a wide range of therapeutic areas.
• Triangulate: Use advanced statistical methods (e.g., causal inference, survival modeling) to establish confident target-to-patient connections and define specific addressable patient populations for early pipeline programs.
• Bridge the Gap: Translate complex platform findings into disease-relevant applications, bridging the gap between high-dimensional data science output and actionable drug discovery insights.
• Present & Influence: Communicate complex biological rationale and data analyses to decision-makers and cross-functional stakeholders, driving data-backed "go/no-go" decisions in a two-stage target approval process.

The Team You’ll Join

Our group is a bold, agile, diverse collective of data scientists and computational biologists driving Recursion’s early portfolio strategy. We are focused on aggressively expanding our early-stage pipeline with highly validated, novel therapeutic targets. To achieve this, we prioritize defining specific patient populations and establishing clear, data-backed translational paths from day one of every new program.

Because this team is dominated by experts in traditional data science, AI/ML, and software engineering, your role is absolutely critical. You will provide the essential biological experience and subject matter expertise to improve and accelerate the work of your peers. Essential attributes for this role include a bold, execution-first attitude, high technical fluency to collaborate seamlessly on data-science-heavy codebases, and a passion for deploying rigorous science to develop life-changing medicines.

The Experience You’ll Need

• PhD in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Human Genetics, Systems Biology, or a closely related field with 3+ years of experience in the biotech or pharma industry OR MS in a relevant field and 5+ years of industry experience focusing on target ID or early drug discovery.
• Biological SME: Deep, real-world experience in target discovery, functional genomics, and understanding the druggability of disease-relevant pathways.
• Data Science Fluency: Highly proficient in Python and/or R, with a strong ability to seamlessly integrate into a data-science-heavy tech stack. Comfortable with modern software engineering practices, cloud computing, and machine learning concepts.
• Patient Data Expertise: Extensive experience working with "discovery-related" human data, particularly transcriptomics (bulk/single-cell), patient genetics/GWAS, and clinical/real-world data (e.g., EHR).
• Analytical Rigor: Experience applying advanced computational and statistical methods to establish biological causality (e.g., survival analysis, causal inference modeling).
• Excellent cross-functional communication skills, with a proven track record of upskilling peers in biological concepts and guiding technical teams toward translatable biological outcomes.

Nice To Have:

• Experience working with, prompting, or integrating Large Language Models (LLMs) and autonomous agentic workflows into scientific research.
• Familiarity with building or utilizing Knowledge Graphs for target identification.
• Experience working in the field of oncology or immunology.

Working Location & Compensation:

This is an office-based, hybrid position at our US headquarters located in Salt Lake City, Utah. 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 $151,800 to $230,000. You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package. 

#LI-EP1

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 decoding biology to radically improve lives. Recursion is advancing a portfolio of differentiated investigational medicines across its wholly owned and partnered pipeline in oncology, rare disease, neuroscience, immunology, and other therapeutic areas with significant unmet need. Enabling its mission is the Recursion OS, an AI-native, end-to-end drug discovery and development platform integrating biology, chemistry, and clinical development into a unified intelligence system. Powered by proprietary multimodal data, purpose-built AI models, and bilingual teams fluent in both science and AI, the Recursion OS is designed to translate complex science into medicines that matter — faster, better, and at scale — for patients who are waiting.

Recursion’s platform infrastructure is anchored in Salt Lake City, Utah and Milton Park, Oxfordshire, where its automated biology and chemistry laboratories generate proprietary data at industrial scale. Recursion also maintains offices in New York, Montréal, and London, three global hubs for talent and leadership at the intersection of AI and scientific innovation. Learn more at www.recursion.com, or connect on X 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.

Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Recursion Pharmaceuticals and its affiliate companies do not accept resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Recursion or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Recursion’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Recursion, and Recursion will not owe any referral or other fees. Our team will communicate directly with candidates who are not represented by an agent or intermediary unless otherwise agreed to prior to interviewing for the job.