{"id":3182438,"url":"https://alion.io/job/latchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy","title":"AI Biologist - Microscopy","company":{"id":171847,"name":"LatchBio","domain":"latch.bio","url":"https://alion.io/company/latchbio","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":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"}},"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":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":120000,"max":180000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":180000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":true,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Claude","optional":false},{"name":"Cursor","optional":false},{"name":"Python","optional":false}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-10-20T00:16:40Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-10-20","last_verified_at":"2026-10-27T07:37:46Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":7,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":7},"description":"AI Biologist - Microscopy\nLatch builds rigorous scientific benchmarks (benchmarks.bio) for AI agents across biology. We work with frontier labs and pharma to measure whether agents can handle real biological workflows: the messy, multi-layer reasoning that matters in the field.\nWe’re seeking an AI Biologist to join our Microscopy team, pushing what AI can achieve in biological imaging.\nAbout the Role. You will be the scientific authority on ground truth, testing whether agents can reason like an expert microscopist. AI agents today struggle to interrogate raw images, separate real biology from artifacts in acquisition, staining, and segmentation, and reach conclusions an expert would stand behind. Experts themselves disagree on roughly 1 in 6 images, so knowing where the evidence ends is part of the work. You will work with software engineers and scientists to build the tasks and datasets behind our benchmarks across cell biology, tissue, and disease. Your judgment will set the standard agent outputs are held to, including:\nBuild the task\nDefine what expert reasoning looks like for an imaging question, and write gold-standard answers with the rationale an experienced microscopist or pathologist would defend\n\nDesign realistic scenarios across the imaging workflow: sample prep, staining, acquisition, preprocessing, segmentation, quantification, and interpretation\n\nCurate image datasets across modalities: immunofluorescence, confocal and live-cell, electron microscopy, histology and histopathology, and high-content screening\n\nBuild analysis pipelines in Python, including deep-learning segmentation, that produce verifiable ground truth\n\nPartner with software engineers to turn your judgment into new workflows\n\nSet the hard calls\nTest whether agents distinguish true signal from artifact, such as bleed-through, uneven illumination, fixation damage, out-of-focus planes, or segmentation failure\n\nAdjudicate ambiguous images: decide what the data supports, where reasonable experts would disagree, and which additional stain, image, or experiment would settle the call\n\nTest whether agents choose the right imaging modality, resolution, and unit of analysis for the question\n\nJudge the agent\nInterrogate agent reasoning step by step, and challenge conclusions that sound right but would not survive pathologist review or lab meeting\n\nPinpoint where agents go wrong: why a step fails, what an expert would do instead, and what evidence would change the call\n\nScore agent confidence, rewarding explicit uncertainty over overconfident calls on ambiguous images\n\nRequirements\nPhD in cell biology, bioimage analysis, pathology, or a related field; or an MD with pathology training\n\nSenior, hands-on imaging experience: you have looked at thousands of samples and know what normal and abnormal look like\n\nDirect experience with image segmentation tools such as CellProfiler, Cellpose, StarDist, QuPath, ilastik, napari, or Fiji\n\nDeep expertise in at least one area (bioimage analysis, cell biology, or histopathology) and working fluency across the others\n\nStrong command of experimental design, image quantification, and statistics\n\nAI-ready from day one: daily use of Claude, Cursor, or similar agents, with the judgment to spot where model reasoning is technically correct but scientifically unsound\n\nConfidence to overrule an AI agent when the evidence demands it, and the openness to update when shown wrong\n\nAbility to calibrate confidence and communicate uncertainty rather than defaulting to binary calls\n\nBonus: electron microscopy, pathology, or pharmacology experience (e.g., pharmacodynamic or drug-uptake imaging assays)\n\nBonus: familiarity with public resources such as the Image Data Resource (IDR), BioImage Archive, Human Protein Atlas, Cell Painting Gallery, or TCGA whole-slide images\n\nCulture. We practice radical transparency: you’ll know how the company is doing, what’s working, and what isn’t. It’ll always be us against the problem, never each other. We’re opinionated but respectful, and we bring solutions with our problems. You decide how you work; we judge the output. We use AI constantly, so what we reward is original expert judgment, not AI output passed off as your own. You’ll start on the bench that fits your expertise and can move across teams as you build a track record. People who do well here and bring leadership experience can move quickly into senior roles. Outside of work, we have company outings most months, team off-sites, a Latch run club, cycling, boxing, ice skating, and soccer. Feel free to add to the list.\nCompensation & Logistics\nContract: 1099 (or W-8BEN internationally), no end date\n\nPay: guaranteed for weeks 1-4 while you ramp, then paid per certified task. Most people in this position earn $120K-$180K+ (uncapped upside); certify twice the tasks/week, earn twice the pay that week.\n\nCommitment: full-time, on your own schedule. Most of the team works 40+ hours a week.\n\nMeetings: a few pod check-ins a week. The rest of your time is yours.\n\nLocation: remote (anywhere), hybrid, or onsite in SF. We prefer onsite.\n\nOnsite perks: catered lunch and dinner daily, a waterfront office in Mission Bay, and monthly parking when available\n\nWork authorization: US citizens, permanent residents, and OPT holders. We can’t support STEM OPT extensions or sponsorship.\n\nInterview Process\nWe move fast: about 2-3 weeks from your first call, to offer.\nIntro Screen - Latch Talent Team\n\nTake-Home Project - HackerRank\n\nTechnical Interview - Member of Technical Staff\n\nCulture Interview - C-Suite\n\nOffer","description_format":"text","description_chars":5568,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":{"level":"phd","optional":false},"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Laboratory Equipment","Bioinformatics","Scientific & Lab Software"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-10-23T22:02:34Z"}],"visa":[{"country":"US","licensed_sponsor":true,"evidence":"H-1B filings in 12 months: 5","filings_12m":5,"filings_prev_12m":1,"green_card_filings_12m":0,"median_offered_wage_usd":112500,"route":null,"cap_exempt":false,"checked_at":"2026-10-15T11:24:14+00:00","sources":["US Department of Labor: LCA disclosure data (H-1B, H-1B1, E-3)"],"filings_for_role_12m":0}],"liveness":{"score":90,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.903,"p_room":1,"age_days":7,"expected_fill_days":30,"reasons":["conf:2","velocity","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-10-27T05:46:45Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":180000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/latchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/latchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-10-27T09:37:09Z","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":10779,"day_limit":null,"remaining_today":null,"minute_limit":300,"resets_at":"2026-10-28T00:00:00Z"}},"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":171847},"rest":"https://alion.io/mcp/rest/get_company?id=171847"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.slices&for=job%2Flatchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy"},{"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%2Flatchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy"},{"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%2Flatchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy"},{"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/latchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy\", \"note\": \"what you need it for\"}"},"human":"https://alion.io/catalog?offer=company.verify&for=job%2Flatchbio-ai-biologist-microscopy"}]}