The Role:
Generate:Biomedicines is seeking an experienced Project Team Lead (PTL) to lead complex, cross-functional scientific teams, advance multiple programs from concept and early discovery through preclinical proof-of-concept, and contribute to translational and early development planning. This is a Director-level role with broad matrix leadership responsibilities and significant influence across research, platform, translational, and portfolio decisions.
The PTL combines deep scientific judgment, strategic program leadership, and operational rigor to shape integrated research plans, drive execution, and ensure programs progress efficiently through key decision points. This role is accountable for the overall success of assigned programs, including project-level decisions, go or no-go recommendations, and clear communication of program strategy, risks, and tradeoffs to senior leadership.
Working closely with the Portfolio Lead, project managers, and functional leaders, the PTL will facilitate cross-functional discussions, make recommendations, and own final project decisions within the team structure. The PTL will also represent programs in governance forums, shape portfolio strategy, and drive alignment across functions in ways that support broader company priorities.
Here's how you will contribute:
- Lead complex cross-functional project teams advancing programs from concept and early discovery through preclinical proof-of-concept, and contribute to translational and early development planning.
- Be accountable for the progress of assigned programs, including overall scientific direction, team effectiveness, execution quality, and readiness for key stage-gate decisions.
- Develop and maintain integrated program strategies and plans that align scientific objectives, timing, dependencies, resourcing, budgets, critical path activities, and decision points.
- Facilitate team discussions, synthesize diverse inputs, make clear recommendations, and drive timely project team decisions and go or no-go recommendations.
- Partner with the Portfolio Lead and senior functional leaders to shape portfolio strategy, refine program direction as data emerge, and ensure execution remains aligned with company priorities.
- Represent programs in governance forums and influence senior leadership decisions through clear, evidence-based recommendations, risk assessments, and scenario planning.
- Drive execution across wet lab, computational, platform, and translational workstreams, ensuring scientific rigor, strong documentation, reproducibility, and high-quality data packages.
- Identify and advance therapeutic opportunities and target proposals by applying a strong understanding of biology, translational relevance, clinical context, and Generate’s differentiated platform capabilities.
- Integrate internal findings with external scientific and competitive insights to inform target selection, program strategy, prioritization, and decision making.
- Develop program resource plans and budget assumptions, and partner with the Portfolio Lead and functional leaders on final resource and budget decisions.
- Anticipate and resolve risks, gaps, and cross-functional dependencies to maintain program momentum in a fast-moving environment.
- Set clear performance expectations for the core team and build a high-performing, collaborative team culture grounded in accountability, transparency, and urgency.
- Provide performance feedback and compensation recommendations for members of the core team, in partnership with their functional managers.
- Partner with functional managers to identify development opportunities, address skills gaps, and support the growth of team members working on core programs.
- Mentor scientists and research leads, helping strengthen technical depth, decision quality, and collaborative leadership across teams.
The Ideal Candidate will have:
- PhD, MD, or MD/PhD in the life sciences or another discipline relevant to therapeutic discovery and development.
- 10+ years of experience leading complex cross-functional research or program teams in biotech, pharma, academia, or a related scientific environment, with scope consistent with a Director-level role.
- Demonstrated success leading and be accountable for complex programs across discovery and translational stages, including key decision points and early development planning.
- Strong scientific grounding in biology, experimental design, data interpretation, and synthesis across multiple technical domains.
- A track record of identifying, evaluating, and advancing novel targets or therapeutic opportunities with strong biological and translational rationale.
- Experience shaping program strategy, influencing senior stakeholders, and driving decisions in matrixed environments without relying on direct line authority.
- Demonstrated ability to own project-level decisions, make sound recommendations with incomplete information, and maintain momentum across competing priorities.
- Experience representing programs in governance settings and translating complex scientific issues into clear recommendations for leadership audiences.
- Strong operational leadership, including integrated planning, prioritization, resource management, and budget ownership.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to bring clarity, candor, and sound judgment to cross-functional discussions.
- Strong learning agility, intellectual curiosity, and comfort operating in ambiguous and evolving environments.
- A hands-on, practical approach to solving problems, unblocking teams, and moving programs forward.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience working on protein therapeutics and related modalities in discovery or development settings, including peptides and conjugate-based approaches.
- Familiarity with computational protein design, machine learning-enabled discovery, or platform-scale biological systems.
- Experience with target selection and target validation, including assessment of biological rationale, tractability, translational relevance, and overall fit with portfolio strategy.
- Understanding of translational strategy, including PK/PD considerations and the role of translational studies in guiding program decisions.
- Familiarity with IND-enabling studies and early clinical development.
- Comfort using LLM-enabled tools and emerging agentic workflows to support scientific planning, analysis, and team execution.
Who Will Love This Job:
- A biomedical scienstist who loves hunting for novel targets and turning early scientific ideas into well-defined therapeutic opportunities.
- A scientifically grounded leader who enjoys owning complex programs and making high-stakes decisions with incomplete information.
- Someone with an entrepreneurial mindset who is energized by building, shaping, and advancing programs in a fast-moving company.
- A matrix leader who knows how to lead through influence, set a high bar, and align strong cross-functional partners without depending on direct line authority.
- A person who enjoys connecting biology, platform capabilities, translational thinking, and portfolio priorities to move the most promising ideas forward.
- Someone who values rigor, accountability, transparency, and collaboration and wants to help build a high-performing team culture.
About Generate Biomedicines
We are a clinical-stage generative biology company pioneering the AI revolution in drug design and development. We are advancing a new approach to drug creation—one grounded in the ability to design proteins with defined biological intent. By integrating machine learning with large-scale experimentation, this approach aims to reduce the uncertainty, time, and cost associated with developing protein-based medicines.
Founded in 2018, we are advancing a growing pipeline of clinical and preclinical programs across multiple disease areas and protein modalities. By unifying computational design and clinical development within a single operating model, we translate this approach into clinical-stage programs and are leading a shift from traditional drug discovery toward systematic drug generation.
At Generate:Biomedicines, we collaborate across disciplines in new ways to invent and innovate. We bring diverse perspectives to a shared goal of delivering better medicines to patients in need, faster, guided by our values and leadership behaviors.
Generate:Biomedicines is committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status.
Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Generate:Biomedicines does not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to Generate:Biomedicines or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by the Company’s internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of Generate:Biomedicines and the Company will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.
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