VP Research; Foundation Models

Role

As a VP of Research - Foundation Models (Distinguished Scientist / Research Lead), you will own:

• Pre-training strategy and execution for biologics foundation models built from scratch across modalities (architecture, data, representation, scaling, evaluation).
• Continued pre-training and adaptation of vertical LLMs for regulated industries.
• The full training stack in practice: data pipelines, distributed training, scaling laws, evaluation harnesses, checkpointing, failure recovery.
• Research direction, standards and review for a small founding team.
• Translating frontier research into models that hold up in regulated, real-world use.

You’ll be a hands‑on Research Lead / Distinguished Scientist role - not a manager of managers - owning architectures, training runs, and technical direction alongside a founding team of elite researchers. Freedom to publish, established compute resources, and direct collaboration with founders, offering real ownership and zero bureaucracy from day one.

• World‑class pre‑training experience (Meta / FAIR, OpenAI, Google Deep Mind, Anthropic, Mistral, or equivalent/academic).
• Deep mastery of large‑scale distributed training (parallelism strategies, scaling laws, optimization at scale, debugging instability).
• Demonstrated experience in data acquisition and preparation at scale.
• Strong publication or shipped‑model track record.
• Biologics / scientific foundation model pre‑training experience across modalities (protein, genomic, molecular, structural, multi‑omics, or other specialized scientific domains).
• PhD in a relevant field.
• Ability to code and stay hands‑on in the details.
• Willingness to be based in Switzerland (Lausanne or Zurich), on‑site.

By joining us as VP of Research, you'll benefit from

• Defined, in‑place compute to run real pre‑training.
• A founding research seat with genuine technical authority.
• Direct partnership with top‑20 pharma companies to bring world‑leading models to life.
• Direct line to the founding team and co‑shaping the company strategy.
• Ability to publish and open source research.
• A competitive compensation package incl. Equity.
• A flexible working culture of freedom & responsibility.
• A position that enables you to have an impact on 1’000s of people and the future of the company.
• An international, passionate team of demonstrated extraordinary achievements with a strong collaborative mindset and a drive to make a positive difference.