Principal Scientist & People Manager, Agentic AI

About Us

Owkin is an agentic AI company on a mission to explore complex biology to speed up and scale research for the creation of new treatments and diagnostics for patients. Owkin K, our AI co-pilot combines unparalleled access to multimodal data, cutting-edge AI to understand biology and pioneering agentic AI to achieve Biological Artificial Superintelligence in the future.

Owkin is comprised of a group of specialized companies that work seamlessly together, combining deep expertise with a shared mission to accelerate biological discovery. Owkin K is the technology foundation of our ecosystem, it provides cutting-edge co-pilots incorporating high-quality data infrastructure and AI tools to power breakthroughs for researchers, customers and our companies.

Owkin has raised over $300 million through investments from leading biopharma companies, including Sanofi and BMS, and venture funds like Fidelity, GV and Bpifrance, among others.Owkin is seeking the best and brightest to join our fast-growing and dynamic team.

Please submit your CV in English

About The Role

Mission: lead the agentic AI research in biology

Owkin is seeking an exceptional and visionary research leader to guide and develop our new Agentic AI research team. It's a unique opportunity to define and execute a long-term research agenda that will fundamentally change our understanding of biology and how we approach drug discovery.

You will lead a dedicated team of brilliant research scientists on a mission to build the "Owkin Brain"—a top-tier, large-scale reasoning model specializing in biology. Drawing upon Owkin's vast proprietary multimodal patient data, you will pioneer novel agent-based approaches, solve core challenges in model reasoning and faithfulness, and establish Owkin as a world leader in AI for drug discovery.

If you are driven by ambitious scientific challenges and want to build and mentor a team at the absolute cutting edge of AI, we want to hear from you.

In Particular, You Will

• Lead, Mentor, and Grow a World-Class Team: manage, and develop a team of research scientists and engineers, fostering a culture of curiosity, creativity, and high-impact research - with opportunities to grow the team in the future.
• Define the Scientific Vision & Roadmap: Own and drive the long-term research strategy for agentic AI at Owkin, building on our OwkinZero program to create models and systems with advanced, multi-step reasoning capabilities.
• Pioneer Novel Methodologies: Direct research into critical areas such as Reinforcement Learning (RL), Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT), and consistent Chain-of-Thought (CoT) reasoning to overcome challenges unique to biological data.
• Architect and prototype Agentic Systems: Spearhead the development of specialist LLMs and agents through hands-on contributions aligned with fast paced product-driven tech company practices.
• Drive breakthroughs in interactive learning: Push RL beyond static Q&A datasets to explore dynamic, interactive training paradigms, potentially integrating with simulated environments like virtual cells to create more robust and capable models.
• Publish and Represent Owkin: Publish research in top-tier journals and conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, Nature, etc.), and act as a key representative for Owkin's scientific leadership in the AI and computational biology communities.
• Collaborate for Impact: Work closely with cross-functional leaders across engineering, product, and biology to ensure your team's research translates into tangible impact for our partners and Owkin's therapeutic platform.
  
  

About You

We are looking for a leader with:

• A Proven Track Record of Research Leadership: A PhD in a relevant field (Machine Learning, Computer Science, etc.) coupled with significant experience leading, managing, and mentoring research teams in either an academic or industrial setting.
• Deep Expertise in Modern AI: Recognized expertise and a significant publication record in one or more of the following areas: Large Language Models (LLMs), Agentic AI, Reinforcement Learning (RL), and Sequential Learning.
• Strategic Vision and Ambition: The ability to think beyond individual experiments and define a compelling, long-term research agenda that aligns with strategic business objectives.
• Hands-On Technical Acumen: you possess a strong practical understanding of deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, JAX, etc.) and the challenges of training large-scale models.
• Passion for Interdisciplinary Impact: A genuine passion for the intersection of AI and biology, with experience in drug discovery, computational biology, or related fields being a significant plus.
• Exceptional Communication Skills: The ability to articulate a complex scientific vision to diverse audiences, from your direct reports to executive leadership and external scientific collaborators.
  
  

What we offer

• Flexible work organization
• Friendly and informal working environment
• Opportunity to work with an international team with high technical and scientific backgrounds
  
  

Recruitment Process & Security

• Please complete the form and submit your CV.
• Owkin is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, color, religion, national origin, protected veteran status or on the basis of disability.
• Owkin is a great place to work. As a coveted workplace we are, unfortunately, vulnerable to recruitment phishing scams. We urge all job seekers and candidates to be wary of potential scams. Most of these have individuals posing as representatives of prominent companies, including Owkin, with the aim of obtaining personal, sensitive, or financial information from applicants. These scams prey upon an individual’s desire to obtain a job and can sometimes “feel” like a genuine recruitment process. Some red flags are identified below. Should you encounter a recruitment process that claims to be for Owkin but is not consistent with the below, please do not provide any personal or financial information:
• Legitimate Owkin recruitment processes include communication with candidates through recognized professional networks, such as LinkedIn.
• Communication is always through an official Owkin email address (from the @owkin.com domain), over the phone or through our applicant tracking system (Greenhouse).
• The Owkin talent team do use platforms such as LinkedIn and Job Teaser, however if you have any concern or doubt about this contact, please ask for them to send an email from @Owkin.com.
• The Owkin talent team will not solicit personal data from candidates during the application phase including, but not limited to, date of birth, social security numbers, or bank account information;
• Legitimate Owkin interviews may be conducted over the phone, in person, or via an approved enterprise videoconferencing service (Google Meets). They will not occur via Signal, Telegram or Messenger
• Owkin offers of employment are based on merit and only extended once a candidate has interviewed with members of the talent and hiring team. Offers will be extended both verbally and in written format.
  
  

If you think that you have been a victim of fraud,

• Check the identity of the talent team on LinkedIn.
• Check the existence of the position on our website https://owkin.com/hiring
• Notify Owkin's recruitment unit at this address [email protected]
• contact the following authorities:
• [FR] https://www.internet-signalement.gouv.fr/
• [UK] https://www.actionfraud.police.uk/reporting-fraud-and-cyber-crime
• [US] https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/