{"id":3340816,"url":"https://alion.io/job/dayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering","title":"Research Scientist, Protein Design & Engineering","company":{"id":4403902,"name":"Dayhoff Labs","domain":"dayhofflabs.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/dayhoff-labs","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":6,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"}},"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":["Cambridge, United States","London, United Kingdom","Houston, United States"],"countries":["US","GB"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":70000,"max_usd":194000,"period":"year","method":"role_country_seniority_unknown","sample_n":3270},"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"Flow Cytometry","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T18:02:51Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-20","last_verified_at":"2026-11-05T13:08:44Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":15,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":15},"description":"About us\nWe're reverse-engineering the origin of life - one of the great unsolved problems in science, and one we think AI finally makes tractable. Understanding this transition, from geochemistry to biochemistry, is what will let us orchestrate molecular networks and build systems that are more capable, adaptive, and efficient.\nIf we succeed, the applications are vast: catalysis, green synthesis, ab initio synthetic biology, programmable matter. Understanding and harnessing these processes could let ten billion of us thrive on this planet - and let life keep evolving beyond it.\nWe're a small, diverse team of AI engineers, computational scientists, and bench scientists. We hold ourselves to the rigor of a research institute, but we ship like an engineering firm. Global team, HQs in Cambridge, MA and London, UK.\nThe role\nYou'll engineer proteins to carry out useful chemistry, combining enzyme discovery, directed evolution, and experimental characterisation. You'll own the experimental cycle: choosing starting points, building variant libraries, developing screens, and establishing which changes improve function and why.\nThis is a hands-on role working closely with our computational and ML teams. You'll test designed proteins at the bench, use experimental results to guide subsequent rounds, and develop enzymes with the activity, selectivity, and stability needed for their intended application. There’s no fixed screening pipeline to inherit - you'll help decide how we build it.\nWhat you'll do\nDesign and run protein engineering campaigns, from initial enzyme selection and library design through screening and characterisation of improved variants.\n\nBuild and express variant libraries using site-directed, random, and combinatorial mutagenesis.\n\nDevelop assays and high-throughput screens that reliably measure the properties we're trying to improve.\n\nExpress, purify, and characterise proteins, measuring kinetics, substrate scope, selectivity, and stability under relevant reaction conditions.\n\nWork with computational scientists to test proposed designs, interpret successes and failures, and use the results to guide the next round.\n\nDevelop enzymatic reactions and cascades, identifying how enzyme performance, cofactors, and reaction conditions affect overall productivity.\n\nEssential experience\nWe're interested in the engineering campaigns you've run, the assays you've built, and what you learned from them. We care about:\nA track record of improving protein or enzyme function through directed evolution or rational engineering.\n\nPractical fluency in molecular biology, including cloning, library construction, mutagenesis, and recombinant protein expression.\n\nExperience developing and troubleshooting enzyme assays and screening workflows, with appropriate controls and follow-up validation.\n\nA solid grasp of enzyme mechanism, kinetics, and structure-function relationships, and the ability to use these to guide experiments.\n\nExperience independently taking projects through multiple design-build-test cycles and explaining what drove the results.\n\nHighly preferred\nExperience with industrial biocatalysis or engineering enzymes for demanding reaction conditions.\n\nExperience integrating liquid handling and laboratory automation with high-throughput screening.\n\nFamiliarity with biosensor-based screens, growth-based selection, or FACS.\n\nExperience testing computationally designed proteins and feeding experimental results back into design.\n\nExperience with enzyme cascades, fermentation, or transferring enzymatic processes from the bench to larger scales.\n\nLogistics\nCompensation is highly competitive. We're also able to sponsor visas for the right candidate.","description_format":"text","description_chars":3702,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Artificial Intelligence","AI for Science"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-27T15:25:28Z"}],"visa":[],"liveness":{"score":66,"band":"ok","label":"Likely open","p_open":1,"p_active":0.739,"p_room":0.9,"age_days":15,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:3","win:mid"],"computed_at":"2026-11-05T05:54:30Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/dayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/dayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-11-05T15:59:43Z","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":"assistant_verified","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":4802,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-11-06T00:00:00Z"}},"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":4403902},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=4403902"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Fdayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering"},{"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%2Fdayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering"},{"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%2Fdayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering"},{"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/dayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Fdayhoff-labs-research-scientist-protein-design-engineering"}],"agent":{"mcp":"https://alion.io/mcp/jobs","mcp_open":"https://alion.io/mcp/open","next":[{"tool":"get_job","arguments":{"id":3340816}},{"tool":"search_jobs","arguments":{"company":"dayhofflabs.com","detail":"compact"}},{"tool":"match_people","arguments":{"job_id":3340816},"note":"people open to offers who fit this vacancy"}],"note":"The same data through MCP tools: https://alion.io/mcp/open needs no sign-in (compact searches, postings, people); https://alion.io/mcp with an Alion account has everything. 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