Director, Neuroscience (In Vitro Cellular Biology)

Your work will change lives. Including your own. 

The Impact You’ll Make: 

Recursion is seeking a Director of Neuroscience to lead the development and application of human iPSC-derived cellular models for neurodegenerative disease drug discovery. This role combines scientific leadership with hands-on execution to advance programs from target identification through lead optimization. You will partner cross-functionally and with external collaborators to deliver high-quality, data-driven insights that accelerate therapeutic discovery.

In this role, you will: 

• Lead design and development of human iPSC-derived cellular models and mechanistic assays for neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS)
• Drive neuroscience programs from early discovery through lead optimization, establishing robust in vitro assay cascades to enable SAR and decision-making
• Design and oversee cellular and molecular assays using high-content imaging and quantitative approaches to interrogate disease biology and mechanism of action
• Collaborate closely with chemistry, pharmacology, data science, screening, toxicology, and DMPK teams to advance targets and molecules
• Contribute to target validation and translational strategies by integrating phenotypic, genomic, and proteomic datasets
• Lead and mentor scientists, fostering a high-performance, collaborative team environment
• Present scientific findings and strategic recommendations to internal leadership and external partners

The Team You’ll Join: 

Reporting to the Vice President of Neuroscience, you will be joining Recursion’s partnership with Roche-Genentech as a key leader. In this role, you will lead a team dedicated to the building of novel technology and projects in neurodegenerative diseases, exploring Recursion’s maps to decode novel neurobiology. This team exploits a multi-omic approach toward the establishment and validation of novel hypotheses in neuroscience disease biology while incorporating functionally relevant translational endpoints. 

The Experience You’ll Need: 

• Ph.D. in Neuroscience, Cell Biology, Pharmacology, or related field, with postdoctoral training
• 5-7+ years of successful leadership, mentorship, and management of drug discovery teams
• 5+ years of industry experience in neuroscience drug discovery
• Experience with CRISPR editing and/or viral systems, familiarity with multi-omics data integration (e.g., RNA-seq, proteomics)
• Prior experience working on partnered programs with external collaborators
• Experience leading cross-functional drug discovery programs
• Expertise in cell-based assays, high-content imaging, and quantitative data analysis
• Strong communication skills and ability to influence across disciplines
• Deep expertise in human cellular disease models, particularly iPSC-derived systems relevant to neurodegeneration
• Proven track record of advancing neuroscience drug discovery programs from target ID through lead optimization
• Thrives in cross-functional, highly collaborative teams and has experience working with external partners or large pharma
• Embraces innovative approaches, including AI/ML-enabled discovery and scalable data generation

Working Location & Compensation:

This is an office and lab-based, hybrid role in our Salt Lake City, UT 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 $198,000-237,600 (USD). You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package. 

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.