Senior Manager - Imaging Machine Learning

The Opportunity

insitro's mission is to bring better drugs faster to patients who can benefit most, through machine learning and data at scale. Our discovery strategy integrates insights from multiple phenotypic readouts across diverse high-content data modalities, including data from public and proprietary human cohorts and in vitro cellular systems generated by our proprietary, automated wet-lab platforms.

In this role, you will lead and grow a team of exceptional machine learning researchers responsible for co-developing methods for extracting information from in-vitro biology using computer vision and machine learning. You will lead an established team of 5 machine learning scientists, several at the Staff level, and be expected to grow it over time. Your team will partner closely with laboratory scientists to develop biological assays in a tight loop, iterating sample preparation protocols and feature extraction methods in tandem. As the manager of this team, you will be responsible for structuring these collaborations in ways that ensure the success of all teams, and your individual team members, as measured by our ability to drive insitro's therapeutic programs forward through understanding of causal human biology.

In addition to working closely with the lab, you and your team will partner closely with our imaging software team, responsible for co-developing and scaling methods your team develops, and computational biologists who will subsequently leverage these tools to extract program-level insights in conjunction with omics (perturb-seq) and clinical insights. As the leader of a team of researchers within the AI/ML organization, you will be expected to remain abreast of the evolving field of in-vitro screening. You will report to the Director of Imaging, Cellular Machine Learning. This is a hybrid position that requires you to be in our South San Francisco headquarters at least three days per week. Join us, and help make a difference to patients!

Responsibilities

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of outstanding machine learning scientists to co-develop methods of extracting insights from in-vitro microscopy datasets

• Work closely with laboratory leadership to structure assay development efforts, and empower members of your team to co-develop in-vitro microscopy assays suitable for genetic perturbation screening, often at whole-genome scale

• Ensure the successful translation of assays you develop to insitro’s computational biology team, who will leverage the assays your teams develop to investigate causal biology through the integration of diverse data modalities, including microscopy

• Co-develop the product vision for insitro’s industry-leading imaging software platform, and continue to support its development through method de-risking and translational development through adherence to established processes for contribution

• Develop methods of measuring and qualifying microscopy data prior to model training and inference, including those which leverage agentic frameworks, VLMs, and self-supervised classification

• Stay abreast of industrial trends and scientific literature in order to ensure insitro’s methods remain industry-leading and correctly matched to our applications.

• Set yearly and quarterly strategic roadmaps for platform, set tactical goals for your team, and align with cross-functional stakeholders on a regular basis

• Work shoulder-to-shoulder with your team where appropriate, participating in method/code review and authorship to model effective execution and cover gaps

About You

• Strong grounding in computer vision and machine learning fundamentals, with practical judgment about where these methods work and where they fail

• Demonstrated experience applying CV/ML to pixel data to extract quantitative features and downstream biological insight

• Working understanding of imaging principles — image formation, microscopy fundamentals, and the artifacts that arise from instruments and sample preparation

• Hands-on experience with cellular imaging datasets (e.g. fluorescence/confocal or label-free microscopy)

• 3+ years of people management, including solid-line management of multiple ICs and at least one senior (Staff-level) scientist or engineer

• Track record of mentoring and growing technical talent day-to-day

• Technical leadership as a decision-maker on projects, platforms, or teams

• Strong communication and the ability to collaborate across functions, including with experimental and clinical life scientists

Nice To Have

• Experience across additional high-content modalities: temporal phenotyping, spatial proteomics, single-cell or bulk omics, or pooled optical (in-situ) screening

• Familiarity with genetic perturbation screening, ideally at genome scale

• Experience with data-quality methods for imaging — agentic frameworks, VLMs, or self-supervised approaches for QC and classification

• Conversational understanding of a relevant disease area (neuroscience, metabolic disease, or cancer biology)

• Experience contributing to or shaping an imaging/CV software platform

Compensation & Benefits at insitro

Our target starting salary for successful US-based applicants for this role is $247,000 - $262,000. To determine starting pay, we consider multiple job-related factors including a candidate's skills, education and experience, market demand, business needs, and internal parity. We may also adjust this range in the future based on market data.

This role is eligible for participation in our Annual Performance Bonus Plan (based on company targets by role level and annual company performance) and our Equity Incentive Plan, subject to the terms of those plans and associated policies.

In addition, insitro also provides our employees:

• 401(k) plan with employer matching for contributions

• Excellent medical, dental, and vision coverage as well as mental health and well-being support

• Open, flexible vacation policy

• Paid parental leave of at least 16 weeks to support parents who give birth, and 10 weeks for a new parent (inclusive of birth, adoption, fostering, etc)

• Quarterly budget for books and online courses for self-development

• Support to attend professional conferences that are meaningful to your career growth and role's responsibilities

• New hire stipend for home office setup

• Monthly cell phone & internet stipend

• Access to free onsite baristas and daily lunch for employees who are either onsite or hybrid

• Access to a free commuter bus network that provides transport to and from our South San Francisco HQ from locations all around the Bay Area

insitro is an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran or disability status.

We believe diversity, equity, and inclusion need to be at the foundation of our culture. We work hard to bring together diverse teams–grounded in a wide range of expertise and life experiences–and work even harder to ensure those teams thrive in inclusive, growth-oriented environments supported by equitable company and team practices. All candidates can expect equitable treatment, respect, and fairness throughout the interview process.

Please be aware of recruitment scams: we never request payments, all recruitment communications are from @insitro.com, and if in doubt, contact us at [email protected].

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About insitro

insitro is a drug discovery and development company using machine learning (ML) and data at scale to decode biology for transformative medicines. At the core of insitro’s approach is the convergence of in-house generated multi-modal cellular data and high-content phenotypic human cohort data. We rely on these data to develop ML-driven, predictive disease models that uncover underlying biologic state and elucidate critical drivers of disease. These powerful models rely on extensive biological and computational infrastructure and allow insitro to advance novel targets and patient biomarkers, design therapeutics and inform clinical strategy. insitro is advancing a wholly owned and partnered pipeline of insights and therapeutics in neuroscience and metabolism. Since launching in 2018, insitro has raised over $700 million from top tech, biotech and crossover investors, and from collaborations with pharmaceutical partners. For more information on insitro, please visit www.insitro.com.