Agile Software Project Manager

Company overview:

1910 Genetics is the only company that has built a synergistic, dual-purpose small and large molecule platform that integrates artificial intelligence (AI), computation, and biological automation to design drug-like molecules better, faster, and cheaper than traditional approaches. Based in the Seaport District of Boston, 1910 Genetics is a Series A stage biotechnology startup that was founded in 2018 and is backed by prestigious investors, including M12-Microsoft’s Venture Fund, Sam Altman – the CEO of OpenAI (makers of ChatGPT), Playground Global, Y Combinator, New Ventures Funds (Scientia Ventures), and many others.

At 1910 Genetics, we first established an understanding of the molecular basis of disease to the granularity at which the world understands sickle cell anemia. This understanding centers biology as our North Star and drives our integration of artificial intelligence (AI), computation, and biological automation to accelerate the design of small molecule and protein therapeutics.

Recent advances in computational technologies have placed historically “undruggable” targets within therapeutic reach. But at 1910 Genetics, we often say “Biology is King,” meaning that computational technologies are only impactful in drug discovery when driven by experimental biology. Our platforms’ scale and breadth empower us to be therapeutic area-agnostic with programs ranging from neuroscience and immunology to infectious disease and oncology, to name a few.

Computation is revolutionizing drug discovery. Advances in big chemical data, massive computing power, artificial intelligence, and molecular dynamics simulation are changing the way we develop new drugs. At 1910 Genetics, we put computation at the heart of drug discovery, blending expertise in computational chemistry, structural biology, pharmacology, genetics, data science, and software engineering to develop drugs for previously undruggable targets. 

Coordinate software development amongst cross functional, multidisciplinary teams involved in all phases of drug discovery. You have experience managing technical and non-technical teams alike.  

You understand data science-based projects in fast-paced, fail-fast, fail-cheap R&D to production environments. 

You have proven experience implementing agile methodologies with a light-touch while guaranteeing focus, provenance, and reproducibility requirements in the earliest stages of R&D. Your deep understanding of the full product development lifecycle for cloud-based products and services helps you ensure industry standard rigor is applied to the bleeding-edge assets produced by our scientists and engineers. 

You communicate and respond effectively and efficiently, while maintaining flexibility and a sense of humor. You are a humble team player who is willing to help with priorities across the growing organization as assigned.    

You are excited about our mission and eager to join us on our journey to lead the AI transformation of drug development and find cures and remedies for the world’s health issues. 

Communicating with internal and external stakeholders to define and execute project scope, as well as address new issues as they arise 

Writing well-defined and actionable user stories 

Manage the transition from single developer projects into software engineering teams by the adoption of Jira or an equivalent project tracking software as needed 

Determine when and if a user story has been completed to the satisfaction of internal users 

Overseeing and guiding: 

Scrum, Kanban and/or Hybrid methodologies 

Converting promising AI models and systems into production-ready tools and platforms 

Remaining up-to-date with full product development life cycle for cloud systems to ensure industry standards 

Ensuring that each rollout comes with a backout/rollback plan, which change management is part of the collective consciousness, unit and regression tests are applied where appropriate, and the CI/CD considerations are part of the project plan up front. You and your teams are solving challenging but important scientific problems by delivering AI platforms and solutions. 

You will help the team achieve a high level of performance and quality, holding teams accountable for their work, removing obstacles, and mentoring less experienced team members. 

You will work closely with computational chemists, biologists, AI scientists, ML engineers, software engineers, and other stakeholders to ensure: 

ensure consistent communication and alignment with goals 

that tasks are selected appropriately to the rank-ordered backlog 

roadblocks are addressed 

collective ownership is maintained 

leadership, managers, and stakeholders have real-time visibility to all projects  

Helped deploy data-rich applications with technically robust lifecycle management (e.g., new releases, change management, data visualization dashboards, AI/ML model monitoring and troubleshooting) and infrastructural support. You can communicate with users and with software developers with equal ease and clarity. You can break a software project down into well-defined and actionable user stories and have used Jira or similar software for this purpose. You have a knack for removing roadblocks, and your EQ enables you to facilitate standups while fostering elevated levels of engagement from team members. You have hands-on experience (or at least exposure to) SQL or NoSQL databases, software engineering fundamentals, web frameworks such as React, modern programming languages such as Python and JavaScript, and scientific software in one or more disciplines such as MOE or Schrodinger. 

Graduate STEM degree in Bioinformatics, Computer Science, Biology, Biochemistry, Engineering (some combination of formal biology and computation preferred) 

Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, business management, or a related field or extensive (5+ years) experience with full cloud software