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Arcadia Science · 2 months ago

Project Director

Emeryville, CA

Full-time

Onsite

Lead/Staff, Director/Executive

$150K/yr - $180K/yr

3+ years exp

Arcadia Science is an evolutionary biology company focused on leveraging biology for therapeutics R&D. They are seeking a Project Director to operationalize scientific programs and manage a team of scientists, ensuring effective collaboration and communication while translating scientific goals into actionable plans.

Biotechnology

Responsibilities

Develop a clear understanding of the relevant scientific vision, goals, and decision-making structure

Build strong working relationships with your team, scientific leadership, and cross-functional collaborators

Design a 90-day execution plan aligned with the scientific roadmap and team priorities

Establish operational systems for tracking progress, such as check-ins, dashboards, and milestone reviews

Begin coordinating timelines, dependencies, and communication across teams

Take full ownership of project execution, ensuring that scientific goals translate into actionable, trackable work plans

Facilitate communication between scientific leads and contributing teams, ensuring clarity around priorities and deliverables

Identify risks, bottlenecks, and resource needs early, surfacing them for scientific or organizational decision-making

Refine operational rhythms and mechanisms to improve transparency and accountability without adding friction or bureaucracy

Establish consistent execution across projects within your program area

Proactively synthesize learnings, dependencies, and progress updates for scientific and organizational stakeholders

Strengthen collaboration between teams by clarifying interfaces, expectations, and shared milestones

Create systems that make it easier for scientific leads to focus on strategy and discovery, while keeping execution smooth and visible

Qualification

PhD in life sciencesExperimental workflow developmentProject management experienceMolecular tool developmentProtein designCommunication skillsResearch operations familiarityNavigating ambiguityMentoring experience

Required

PhD in the life sciences or a related field, and at least three years of post-PhD work

3+ years leading complex, multi-stakeholder research and development projects or programs in a fast-paced, goal-oriented environment

Familiarity with research operations or project management tools

Experience developing complex experimental and/or computational workflows (for example, high-throughput assays, molecular or optical methods, or modeling/design pipelines)

Demonstrated ability to design and deliver structured execution in dynamic, research-driven environments

Exceptional communication, organization, and facilitation skills

Experience supervising or mentoring scientists

Comfort navigating ambiguity and helping others make progress through it

Preferred

Experience in high throughput molecular assays, genetic perturbation screens, or imaging-based multi-dimensional phenotyping

Experience in protein design or protein engineering, protein biochemistry or structural biology, or integrating machine learning/protein language models into design or analysis workflows

A track record of open, collaborative work (e.g., preprints, open data, code sharing)

Experience in fast-paced, iterative start-up environments