Director, Bioware

About Us:

Exthymic is an early-stage deep-tech startup on a mission to prevent millions of cancer deaths by making curative cell therapies widely accessible. Our platform enables patient-specific treatment manufacturing at the point of care, overcoming the limits of centralized biopharma models. Led by experienced industry pioneers, we blend hardware, software, and biological engineering to disrupt the status quo and democratize life-saving therapies.

Join us to solve complex challenges and drive global healthcare innovation.

Reporting to the Chief Scientific Officer, you will lead and manage the Bioware team. Own the planning and experimental design behind our product-development process, and clearly communicate the experimental designs and research conclusions to leadership and the broader team. Partner with senior leaders to shape the technical strategy, communicate the roadmap to clients and partners, keep cross-functional work streams on schedule, and lead the scientific team.

You thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative startup; build strong relationships with vendors and cross-functional partners; and take ownership of products from early development through commercialization. You manage competing priorities with confidence and drive projects forward with a strong sense of accountability.

• Lead and manage research associates and scientists—Hire, manage, and develop a team of scientists and research associates. Own team priorities and individual growth and carry the day-to-day scientific leadership through both coaching and collaborative bench work. You take satisfaction in helping others grow and in building a team that can take increasing ownership over time.
• Own experimental strategy—Lead experimental design across the Bioware team: applying sound design to structure development work, isolate critical parameters, maximize the information gained per experiment and work with senior leadership to make data-driven decisions. And set the standard for rigorous, well-documented, reproducible experimentation.
• Lead the scientific team in the lab as a player-coach—Be hands‑on at the bench, working alongside the team to solve problems, run and troubleshoot key experiments, and keep work moving; lead by doing as much as by directing.
• Communicate the science across the organization—Translate complex scientific work into clear presentations and articulate experimental designs and research conclusions to leadership and team members across the organization, ensuring decisions are grounded in a shared understanding of the data.
• Build and manage vendor and partner relationships—Identify, evaluate, and manage relationships with key vendors, suppliers, and contract partners for antibody design and manufacturing, surface polymers, protein reagents, and critical consumables. Negotiate supply agreements, set quality expectations, and develop the supply chain resilience the company needs as it scales.
• Guide products from development to market—Serve as the technical and product-development lead taking biochemical manufacturing and design through development stages toward commercialization. This includes coordinating design inputs, managing stage‑gate milestones, and ensuring the science is well-documented and de‑risked to support regulatory submissions and eventual commercial transfer.

• Ph.D. in chemistry, biochemistry, bioengineering, materials science, or a related discipline; or a Bachelor’s/Master’s degree with directly equivalent industry experience.
• 8+ years of relevant industry experience in one or more of surface chemistry, protein or small molecule engineering, NGS, and bioconjugation, with a track record of advancing products from research to development.
• Dire…