Scientist, Cheminformatics

COMPANY

Octant is a clinical-stage drug discovery company developing correctors for protein misfolding diseases with active programs in rare diseases and oncology. Octant’s platform, The Navigator, combines high-throughput synthetic biology, generative chemistry, and AI/ML to discover and develop therapeutics against complex cellular mechanisms in human cells.

JOB DESCRIPTION

We are seeking a scientist with cheminformatics expertise to join our dynamic and multidisciplinary research team. A core focus of your role will be to guide assay development and evaluate the resulting data using chemical reasoning, expanding the capabilities of the Octant Navigator platform. You will begin with our OpenADMET effort, turning high-throughput ADMET datasets into chemical insight that serves both Octant's drug programs and the open science community, and broaden into internal platform work over your first year.

You will apply chemical intuition and statistical rigor to every stage of the work, from assay development to compound selection to analysis at scale. You are motivated by the mission of Octant and have a team-first mindset. You bring excellent communication skills and an ability to thrive in a dynamic and fast-paced environment.

IN THIS ROLE, YOU WILL:

• Partner with analytical chemists and biologists to develop high-throughput ADMET assays, applying chemical reasoning to assess data quality and validity
• Develop the experimental designs and analyses that turn those assays into robust, quantitative DMPK measurements that scale to hundreds of thousands of compounds
• Guide compound and building-block selection connecting our in-house high throughput synthesis capabilities to ADMET assays and OpenADMET's public competitions, balancing scientific value with experimental feasibility
• Develop and contribute to the data and computational infrastructure needed to process assay results at scale, enabling scientists to access and analyze their own data in consistent, statistically sound ways
• Collaborate with drug discovery scientists to translate OpenADMET capabilities into platform tools that benefit Octant’s program teams, and help shape and prioritize assay and tool development
• Refine our chemistry platform and deliver increasingly valuable data to program teams, helping realize our vision for high-throughput chemical learning and SAR
• Work hand-in-hand with machine learning scientists, software engineers, biologists, chemists, and automation engineers.

THIS JOB MIGHT BE GREAT FOR YOU IF YOU HAVE:

• A PhD in Chemistry, Cheminformatics, Chemical Biology, Computational Chemistry, or a related discipline
• 3-5 years of research experience. Industry preferred, but exceptional recent PhD graduates with strong relevant experience are encouraged to apply
• Expertise in organic and/or medicinal chemistry, ideally including DMPK; ability to reason about structure-property relationships
• Practical analytical chemistry knowledge, especially chromatography (HPLC, SFC, LC-MS): retention behavior, failure modes, and ability to differentiate signal from artifact
• Strong statistics and data science fundamentals, including experiment design, batch effects, and uncertainty; ability to develop quantitative assays and generate and analyze large datasets
• Solid software skills: fluency in Python and/or R and the standard cheminformatics stack (e.g., RDKit, pandas), writing reproducible analyses that other people can actually run and build on
• Experience working side-by-side with experimentalists, chemists, engineers, and data scientists; an instinct for building analyses and tools that scientists can run themselves
• Excitement about open science: much of this work will be public-facing through OpenADMET, a rare opportunity in drug discovery
• Flexibility to rapidly changing priorities and project needs, with the ability to thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative environment. Comfortable with ambiguity and able to pivot strategies as needed to meet project goals.
• Strong problem-solving and decision-making abilities, with a proactive approach to anticipating potential issues and addressing them before they become critical.
• A drive to build a successful company in your role as a cheminformatician and beyond.

Optional: Along with your application, please share a paper/preprint/software repo that best highlights your strengths so we can better understand work you've led. If there is nothing public, please summarize that work in a few paragraphs. We'd love to also hear about things you've been proud to build or lead outside of science.

The expected annual salary for this role is in the range of $150,000 to $190,000, depending on experience level. We offer health benefits (medical, dental, vision), equity, and 401(k) matching.

Octant is located in Emeryville, California and we work onsite.

Octant is an equal opportunity company that values applicants of all backgrounds. We’re committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive work environment. We value less traditional backgrounds, and may consider an equivalent combination of knowledge, skills, education, and experience to meet minimum qualifications. We know that confidence-gap and imposter syndrome can get in the way of meeting spectacular candidates, so please don’t hesitate to apply — we’d love to hear from you.

Octant’s Platform, “The Navigator,” accelerates the design, build, test, & learn iterations across chemistry and biology to build drugs against cellular mechanisms. The Navigator is an expanding set of drug discovery and development capabilities with three interwoven components that operate together:

• Generative Biology – Multiplexed measurements from engineered sensors in human cells to understand cellular mechanisms
• Generative Chemistry – Nanoliter-scale chemical synthesis for rapid exploration of local & targeted chemical space
• Generative AI – ML/AI ingests large-scale biological and chemical datasets and drives iteration of experiments to build better molecules faster

Together, the Navigator platform drives week-to-week progress on our drug programs, generating 3M+ readouts each week across multiple therapeutic areas.