Forward Deployed Computational Biologist
About us
Owkin is an agentic AI company pioneering Biological Artificial Superintelligence to solve problems in biology where human researchers alone have failed.
Owkin builds K Pro - an AI scientist for pharmaceutical research and strategic decision-making. K Pro orchestrates a suite of AI skills and tools to decode complex biology, accelerate research, and dramatically increase productivity.
K Pro is built on Owkin’s unrivalled multimodal patient data network, state-of-the-art AI for biology and a decade of experience working with pharmaceutical partners.
Please submit your CV in English
About the role:
We are seeking a Forward Deployed Computational Biologist to operate at the intersection of AI, software systems, and biology. In this role, you will work directly with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to design, build, and deploy production-grade AI solutions for complex scientific problems as part of Owkin’s agentic platform, K Pro, to fully meet specific customer needs.
This is a hands-on, client-facing role. You will spend time at the customer’s premises, turning ambiguous scientific challenges—such as discovering novel drug targets or disease subtypes—into reliable and scalable agentic solutions. You will be responsible for both the scientific rigor of the analytical workflows and the technical robustness of their implementation and deployment, bridging the gap between science and real-world application.
In particular, you will:
Deploy & Custom-build: Tailor Owkin’s agentic AI platform, K Pro, to specific client needs by implementing new analytical workflows, and integrate our platform into the clients’ existing workflows.
Solve Scientific Problems: Translate complex biological and operational questions into concrete computational workflows, utilizing deep clinical and multi-omics data (genomics, transcriptomics, etc.) and computational biology methodologies.
Rapid Prototyping: Iterate quickly with users to validate solutions, balancing speed and quality to ensure effective, measurable impact.
Collaboration: Work alongside Customer Success Managers, R&D data scientists, biologists, and software engineers to ensure the delivery of high-quality scientific insights.
Knowledge Transfer: Communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders—from clinicians and biologists to technical engineering teams—to ensure alignment and adoption.
Participation in a team-wide on-call rotation is required.
This role requires frequent international travel to support our global operations and client needs. Anticipated destinations include the Owkin Paris office as well as various client premises across the UK, US, France, Germany, and Switzerland. To facilitate this travel schedule, the successful candidate must be based in close proximity to a major international airport or major train station.
About you
Required qualifications / experience:
Education: MSc/PhD in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Biology, Computer Science, or a related field.
Proven expertise and impact in analyzing complex data, such as real-world clinical data and multimodal omics (e.g, bulk, spatial/single-cell, proteomics) and high-throughput experimental data.
Biological knowledge: Strong knowledge of molecular biology and at least one major therapeutic area (oncology, Immunology & Inflammation, neurology, …).
Bias for action: Ability to operate in fast-paced environments, managing ambiguity, and driving progress toward delivery.
Engineering Proficiency: Very strong programming skills in Python; ability to both ideate and conduct exploratory analyses and data visualisations to aid interpretation; and write clean, production-grade code. Strong familiarity with coding agents.
AI/ML Experience: Familiarity with machine learning concepts (e.g., cross-validation, statistical tests) and frameworks (scikit-learn, XGBoost, etc.). Experience with LLMs and agentic AI frameworks is a plus.
Communication: Exceptional ability to translate scientific complexity for non-technical internal and external stakeholders.
Preferred qualifications/bonus:
Experience in a Biotech/Pharma environment and excellent understanding of the different steps and respective needs of the typical Pharma drug discovery pipeline.
Demonstrated ability to write production-level code in deployed products.
What we offer
Flexible work organization
Friendly and informal working environment
Opportunity to work with an international team with high technical and scientific backgrounds
Recruitment Process & Security
Please complete the form and submit your CV.
Owkin is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status or on the basis of disability.
Owkin is a great place to work. As a coveted workplace we are, unfortunately, vulnerable to recruitment phishing scams. We urge all job seekers and candidates to be wary of potential scams. Most of these have individuals posing as representatives of prominent companies, including Owkin, with the aim of obtaining personal, sensitive, or financial information from applicants. These scams prey upon an individual’s desire to obtain a job and can sometimes “feel” like a genuine recruitment process. Some red flags are identified below. Should you encounter a recruitment process that claims to be for Owkin but is not consistent with the below, please do not provide any personal or financial information:
Legitimate Owkin recruitment processes include communication with candidates through recognized professional networks, such as LinkedIn.
Communication is always through an official Owkin email address (from the @ domain), over the phone or through our applicant tracking system (Greenhouse).
The Owkin talent team do use platforms such as LinkedIn and Job Teaser, however if you have any concern or doubt about this contact, please ask for them to send an email from @.
The Owkin talent team will not solicit personal data from candidates during the application phase including, but not limited to, date of birth, social security numbers, or bank account information;
Legitimate Owkin interviews may be conducted over the phone, in person, or via an approved enterprise videoconferencing service (Google Meets). They will not occur via Signal, Telegram or Messenger
Owkin offers of employment are based on merit and only extended once a candidate has interviewed with members of the talent and hiring team. Offers will be extended both verbally and in written format.
If you think that you have been a victim of fraud,
Check the identity of the talent team on LinkedIn
Check our senior team on our website
Check the existence of the position on our website:
Notify Owkin's recruitment unit at this address hiring@owkin.com
contact the following authorities:
[FR]
[UK]
[US]
Skills
As published by ashby · 29 questions · 4 written answers
Basics
Name, Email, Resume
Short answers (5)
- Phone number
- LinkedIn Profile optional
- Personal website or portfolio link optional
- I was referred by optional
- Please can you tell us how you found us?
Pick from a list (20)
- As part of our commitment to fair and equitable hiring, we assess candidates based on their individual capabilities and authentic engagement. Our interview process is designed to evaluate your knowledge, problem-solving approach and communication skills in real-time. We do not permit the use of AI tools, automated assistance, or any form of AI-generated content during interviews (except for take home tests).
- Which country are you currently based in?
- From which country will you be working?
- I am totally comfortable speaking and writing English on a daily basis and I am happy to be working in an international environment.
- I certify that the information provided in this application is true and accurate to the best of my knowledge. I understand that any false statements or omissions may disqualify me from further consideration for employment, or, if I am already employed, may result in termination. Additionally, I acknowledge and agree that Owkin will perform background verification as part of assessing my candidature, which includes, at minimum, verifying my identity, right-to-work status, qualifications, employment history, and professional references.
- Are you comfortable traveling and working at customer sites (US, EU) up to 30% of the time?
- Have you built and maintained data processing pipelines for omics data that ran beyond a one-off analysis?
- Have you packaged a bioinformatics workflow in Docker and run it on a cluster or cloud environment?
- Have you consumed or built APIs to pull from public resources (e.g. GEO, Open Targets, PubMed)?
- Have you structured a Python codebase as a reusable package or library that other people depend on?
- Have you worked directly with customers or end users to deliver and adapt technical solutions under delivery constraints?
- Oncology research
- Immune & inflammatory diseases
- Neurology
- Cardiovascular diseases
- Bulk transcriptomics
- Single-cell transcriptomics
- Spatial transcriptomics
- Cancer genomics
- Germline disease genomics
Written answers (4)
- Do you require reasonable accomodation in completing your application? optional
- In your own words, let us know why you think you would be a fantastic Owkinaute
- Describe your experience using AI tools to support your software development work. Please share specific examples and describe what you’ve learned about collaborating effectively with AI
- Feel free to also add other omics data types if not listed optional