Senior Project Manager, Research

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Xaira is an innovative biotech startup focused on leveraging AI to transform drug discovery and development. The company is leading the development of generative AI models to design protein and antibody therapeutics, enabling the creation of medicines against historically hard‑to‑drug molecular targets. It is also developing foundation models for biology and disease to enable better target elucidation and patient stratification. These technologies enable the continual identification of novel therapies and improve success in drug development.

Xaira is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and London.

We are seeking a Senior Project Manager, Research to support high‑priority programs in our research organization. The ideal candidate has a strong scientific and software background, with experience managing cross‑functional projects in research settings. Hands‑on experience in ML model training, software development, and biologics R&D is required, with a proven ability to manage timelines, track deliverables, and partner closely with scientific leads to keep projects moving in the right direction without compromising on quality.

• Support day‑to‑day planning and coordination of platform research programs, ensuring clear communication of next steps, expected deadlines, and needs to stakeholders.
• Build and maintain project timelines that capture critical milestones, dependencies, and deliverables.
• Partner with scientific leads and functional stakeholders to align on scope, priorities, and progress.

• Collaborate with scientific teams to define key project milestones, decisional experiments, and translate them into actionable, resource‑information timelines.
• Help compile project data, timelines, risks, and trade‑offs to support informed decision‑making.
• Coordinate and facilitate planning and documentation of decisive experiments, and update project plans based on results and next steps.

• Facilitate cross‑functional collaboration across research to ensure effective communication and documentation of decisions, alignment of priorities and timelines.
• Schedule and run cross‑functional meetings, ensuring clear agendas, effective documentation, and follow‑up on action items.
• Monitor interdependencies across functions and proactively identify, flag and resolve conflicts across work streams.

• Track project status, risks, and mitigation strategies; provide updates to internal stakeholders.
• Coordinate with functional leads to understand resource needs and potential impacts to timelines.
• Identify operational challenges and recommend improvements to enhance efficiency and coordination.
• Develop scenario plans for critical path development decisions to support contingency and investment planning.

• Advanced degree (MS, PhD, or equivalent) in life sciences or a related field strongly preferred.
• Minimum of 6+ years of industry experience, including hands‑on biologics research with demonstrated project or timeline management responsibilities.
• Proven track record of managing research programs, both in wet‑lab and dry‑lab.
• Deep understanding of processes in biologics research and ML research.
• Strong analytical, planning, and organizational skills; able to translate complex scientific ideas into clear plans.
• Excellent communication, time management, collaboration, and stakeholder management skills.
• Experience with basic project tracking tools; advanced PM certifications or software expertise preferred but not required.
• Please note that this position will be required to be on‑site in the Seattle office. Exceptions may be made for candidates who can work out of our SSF office, but Seattle is preferred. Unfortunately we are unable to accommodate an entirely remote position.

• Comfortable managing projects in a fast‑paced, cross‑functional environment.
• Hands‑on experience both with wet‑ and computational research. Experience with data generation…