{"id":97024,"url":"https://alion.io/job/asterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior","title":"Research Associate, Rodent Surgery & Behavior","company":{"id":7738,"name":"Astera Institute","domain":"asterainstitute.org","url":"https://alion.io/company/asterainstitute","size_band":null,"is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":77,"open_postings":40,"ghost_share":0.3,"stale_share":0,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":63,"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"}},"role":"Science & Research","role_family":"Science & Research","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["Alameda, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":80000,"max":120000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":120000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Python","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-16T03:27:40Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-16","last_verified_at":"2026-10-25T05:58:28Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":70,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":0,"flags":["company_stale"],"days_open":70},"description":"About Astera\nAstera is a private foundation on a mission to steer science and technology toward a better future. We believe the coming years will bring an era of unprecedented scientific and technological advancement as exponential progress in AI converges with central advances in other fields to accelerate innovation. This inflection point provides an unparalleled opportunity to fundamentally rethink the institutions, systems, and tools that drive progress. We have committed a $3.5B endowment to that work and fit the form of our support to the function it serves: grants, investments, and in-house research programs. We accept meaningful risk in the research we back and expect some of it to fail because transformative ideas are rarely the ones already proven. Our projects, and the foundation itself, operate like high-velocity startups, with a high performance bar and competitive compensation to match. We are searching for leaders who are compelled by the challenge of driving high-impact change in the way science is funded, conducted, and communicated. You can read more about our mission, vision, and programming at astera.org/vision.\nCompany Overview\nAstera Neuro seeks to understand and engineer consciousness. We believe consciousness is the process by which the brain builds a coherent internal model of the world and the self. We aim to understand this model and to develop the technologies to write experience directly into the brain. By combining large-scale neural recording, causal perturbation, and brain-based AI, we seek to move neuroscience from observing correlates of experience to engineering it. The same tools carry direct therapeutic promise for neurological and psychiatric diseases that alter perception, thought, and sense of self. Because the science and tools required do not yet exist, we are assembling a founding team of neuroscientists, theorists, and engineers to create them. We do high-risk, high-reward science in a well-resourced, collaborative environment with competitive pay, and share everything openly under Astera's Open Science Policy.\nPosition Summary\nWe’re hiring a research associate to join Astera Neuro’s rodent neuroscience team. Your initial assignment is to run the surgery and behavior training that prepare animals for an all-optical program: reading, writing, and perturbing working memory in the mouse cortex. Chronic cranial-window and headbar implants are the core of the job from day one.\nThe ideal candidate is meticulous and fast with their hands, with experience performing cranial-window surgeries. You can implant a window in the morning, run a behavior-training session in the afternoon, and keep the colony and the rigs in order. A clear, long-lived window is what makes a write-in experiment possible, so surgical yield and preparation quality set the ceiling on what the team can attempt.\nWhat You’ll Do\nPerform mouse survival surgeries: stereotaxic AAV viral-vector delivery, chronic cranial-window implantation, and headbar installation.\n\nRun head-fixed behavior training on the sequence working-memory task, including daily training, data collection, and rig upkeep.\n\nBuild and maintain behavior rigs, including Bonsai and Harp control and lickport hardware.\n\nRun the mouse colony and coordinate animal sourcing, health, and readiness with the vivarium.\n\nKeep careful, shared records of surgeries, training histories, and preparation quality so others can build on the work.\n\nWork closely with the scientists running the all-optical experiments to keep preparation, imaging, and perturbation tightly coupled.\n\nWho You Are\nRequired:\nBS or BA with 0-6+ years of experience in neuroscience, biology, bioengineering, or a related field, or equivalent hands-on experience. We value demonstrated skill and relevant experience above credentials.\n\nCurrent, hands-on experience performing mouse survival surgery: chronic cranial-window implantation and headbar installation, plus stereotaxic viral injections. This is the requirement that matters most: these are hard skills to learn, and we need them on day one.\n\nA track record of high surgical yield and healthy, long-lived window preparations.\n\nMeticulous, fast hands, and the ability to sustain high-quality work at volume.\n\nPreferred/Nice to Have:\nHead-fixed behavior-training experience, ideally with working-memory or sequence tasks.\n\nScripting in Python and familiarity with Bonsai and Harp or comparable behavior-control tools.\n\nExperience building and maintaining behavior rigs, including lickport and other custom hardware.\n\nExperience with two-photon imaging or optogenetic stimulation in awake mice.\n\nColony management experience and comfort coordinating with vivarium staff.\n\nWhat We Value\nConviction that the brain’s internal model can be understood in full, and that getting there requires a kind of science no single academic lab can do; we’re betting on scale, deep collaboration, and open sharing of ideas in a full-stack environment.\n\nWillingness to be held to an engineering standard. In this role that standard lands on the preparation: we treat surgical yield and window quality as scientific results, not support work.\n\nComfort building on shared infrastructure rather than private projects; rigs, surgical preparations, and records are standardized so they can be shared across the team.\n\nCare for the animals: healthy, well-handled, calm mice, supported by dedicated veterinary oversight, are the foundation of both the science and its credibility, independent of what regulation requires.\n\nCommitment to open science. We release tools, data, and methods, and aim to create a new dynamic of rapid, open exchange in neuroscience.\n\nWhy Join Us\nResearch Associate at Astera Neuro preparing animals for an all-optical program to read, write, and perturb working memory in mouse cortex. You will perform the surgeries the program depends on, run behavior training, and keep the colony and rigs in order. This work sits within Astera Neuro’s larger effort to answer the hardest and least understood questions in neuroscience: how the brain generates thoughts, intelligence, and consciousness.\nAstera Neuro provides a comprehensive benefits package and total compensation that is competitive and commensurate with the level of experience and qualifications.\nWe are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity and inclusion!","description_format":"text","description_chars":6372,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"bachelor","optional":true},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["AI Research Labs","Nonprofits & Foundations","Research Institutes"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-08-16T03:27:40Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":29,"band":"fade","label":"Fading","p_open":1,"p_active":0.66,"p_room":0.44,"age_days":70,"expected_fill_days":63,"reasons":["conf:3","win:tail","crowd:"],"computed_at":"2026-10-25T05:49:26Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":120000,"is_top_pay":false},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/asterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/asterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-25T09:42:10Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","about":"Alion is a live layer of people, companies and AI agents: who they are, whether they are real and active right now, what they do and how to work with them, readable by people and by agents and paid per call.","catalog":"https://alion.io/catalog.json","usage":{"tier":"crawler_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":13887,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-26T00:00:00Z"}},"offers":[{"id":"company.slices","title":"One company in depth, by slice","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002,"plus_per_slice":{"credits":0.05,"usd":0.005}},"unit":"per company, plus each slice with data","note":"the employer in depth","call":{"mcp_tool":"get_company","arguments":{"id":7738},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=7738"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fasterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior"},{"id":"market.stats","title":"A market slice: pay, demand and time to fill","status":"live","price":{"credits":1,"usd":0.1},"unit":"per slice","note":"pay, demand and time to fill for this role and place","call":{"mcp_tool":"market_stats"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=market.stats&for=job%2Fasterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior"},{"id":"job.search","title":"Open jobs by role, technology, place, pay and visa","status":"live","price":{"credits":0.02,"usd":0.002},"unit":"per posting in a list","note":"similar open postings","call":{"mcp_tool":"search_jobs"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=job.search&for=job%2Fasterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior"},{"id":"company.verify","title":"Is this company real and active right now","status":"pilot","price":null,"unit":"per company","request":{"url":"https://alion.io/catalog/request","method":"POST","body":"{\"offer\": \"company.verify\", \"for\": \"job/asterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fasterainstitute-research-associate-rodent-surgery-behavior"}]}