SOLUGEN

Houston, TX 77035

POSITION

Senior/Principal Scientist – Enzymes

ABOUT SOLUGEN

At Solugen, we believe planet-scale change starts with the chemistry we use every day. So, we've built the world's first carbon negative molecule factory. Fusing biology with chemistry and technology to make the materials we need to sustain life on Earth. Solugen, Inc. is a revolutionary product and technology company seeking to use biology to transform the chemicals industry. Solugen was founded in 2016 and is a post-Series D venture-backed biotechnology company supported by renowned venture capital firms including Founders Fund, FiftyYears, Refactor, Y Combinator, Temasek, GIC, and Baillie-Gifford. Located in Houston, Texas, Solugen has recently started-up a first-of-its-kind carbon-negative manufacturing facility - The BioforgeTM - that uses a novel chemoenzymatic technology to manufacture bio-based chemistries for a wide range of applications including water treatment, agriculture, personal care, and other applications. Solugen currently has 175+ full time employees.

MISSION

Solugen's mission is to decarbonize chemicals manufacturing. As a first step, Solugen is building a 10,000 tpy first commercial plant with the potential to offset up to 37,000 tpy of carbon dioxide equivalents. This role will directly support Solugen's mission by continuously improving Solugen's core catalytic platform. As the activity, selectivity, stability, and manufacturing cost of Solugen's core catalytic platform continuously improves, the quality of Solugen's products and our cost to manufacture improve.

KEY OUTCOMES

• Develop a preliminary machine learning architecture for predicting beneficial protein mutations deployed on cloud computing resources within the first three months
• Train models using available bioinformatics databases and in-house data within the first six months
• Collaborate with the Enzymes team to validate results with at minimum two iterations performed within the first year

KEY COMPETENCIES

JOB SPECIFIC

• Advanced training in machine learning as applied to design of enzymes or proteins in general
• Experience with cloud computing services such as AWS or Google Cloud Engine
• Experience with deep learning architectures such as random forests and recursive convolutional neural networks
• Experience with NLP
• Working knowledge of Python, particularly the numpy/scipy/pandas/scikit-learn data science stack
• Working knowledge of linear algebra and calculus
• Working knowledge of modern version control packages (i.e., git/github)
• Working knowledge of deep learning methods and libraries (keras, tensorflow, and/or Pytorch)
• Experience with protein biochemistry 
• Willingness to build and support a team

COMPANY SPECIFIC

• Ability to be nimble with a willingness to embrace the speed and ambiguity of startup culture
• Passion for green chemistry and fighting climate change
• Willingness to learn and research new engineering/science concepts
• Comfort working in multiple roles
• Ability to self-manage and set priorities and schedule
• Creative problem-solving nature
• Respect for others
• Emphasize safety above all else
• Participate in implementing the QMS program and identifying training on personnel as needed
• Promote customer focus and awareness of the quality policy and quality objectives and how they can contribute to them
• Recognize and communicate opportunities for improvement to the QMS
• Ensure that the processes are delivering the expected outputs

QUALIFICATIONS

• PhD, Masters, or BS in computer science, bioinformatics, or related field 
• 1-4 years working as a software developer with emphasis on machine learning
• Remote work options available

Solugen is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other legally protected status.