Application Scientist (Maternity Cover)

Background

Founded in 2009 and headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Optibrium develops software and novel technologies to improve the efficiency and productivity of drug discovery. Our solutions support industry-leading research for a global customer base, including top-ten pharma and innovative biotech companies. Our products include:

• StarDrop™ – Integrated software for small-molecule design, optimisation, and data analysis;
• Cerella™ – A platform that fills gaps in drug discovery data to identify the most promising compounds and experiments; and
• BioPharmics™ – A 3D molecular design platform for everything from small molecules to large macrocycles.

We’re looking for an experienced drug discovery scientist to join our Application Science team as maternity cover. You’ll be the trusted scientific partner for a portfolio of our customers: the person they turn to when they want to get more out of our software and apply it to their projects. You’ll help chemists and project teams solve real discovery problems, lead demonstrations and training, and make sure every customer has an excellent experience working with Optibrium.

If you’ve spent your career designing and making compounds and want to use that experience to help many discovery teams at once, outside the lab, we’d love to hear from you. You don’t need to have used StarDrop before; we’ll give you a structured onboarding and you’ll work alongside experienced Application Scientists from day one.

Main Priorities of the Role

• Be the single point of contact for your customers, building strong, long-term relationships with medicinal chemists, computational scientists and project leaders
• Help customers get real value from our software by understanding their science and showing them how to apply StarDrop, Cerella and BioPharmics to their projects
• Run engaging software demonstrations, training sessions and workshops for prospective and existing customers, mostly online and occasionally in person
• Partner with Account Management and New Business teams on evaluations and renewals, bringing the scientific expertise that shows customers what our software can do for them
• Answer customers’ scientific and technical questions, from interpreting results to installation and licensing, drawing on our developers and science team where needed
• Spot opportunities to increase adoption, and share customer feedback with our product and science teams to help shape future development
• Keep accurate records of customer interactions, licences and support cases

Experience

The ideal candidate will have:

• Hands-on drug discovery experience in pharma, biotech or a CRO, for example as a medicinal, synthetic or computational chemist
• A PhD or degree in chemistry or a closely related science
• A real interest in how software, data and AI can help scientists make better decisions
• Confidence presenting to and teaching scientific audiences, from bench chemists to senior leaders
• A customer-focused mindset: you enjoy helping others succeed and take ownership of getting things resolved
• Clear, friendly written and spoken communication, with the ability to explain complex ideas simply
• Good organisation, with the ability to manage several customers and priorities at once
• Comfort working with software and troubleshooting issues on Windows, macOS and Linux (we’ll train you on the specifics)
• Desirable: experience using StarDrop or other molecular design and data analysis software, a customer-facing or application science role, or some scripting experience (e.g. Python)

Our Culture

We’re an established, financially secure business with an entrepreneurial culture, where ideas are welcome from everyone. We value curiosity, collaboration and clear communication. In this role you’ll get to know our AI-driven software in depth and work directly with scientists at leading pharma, biotech and academic organisations around the world, seeing a far wider range of discovery projects than you would within a single organisation.

What We Offer

A competitive salary, pension contribution, private medical and dental cover, and life assurance, with fully remote working and flexible hours. You’ll also receive full training on our software and the science behind it.

If you’re interested in joining a growing, entrepreneurial team working in an exciting field, please apply with a CV and covering letter to vacancies@optibrium.com (unsolicited applications from agencies will not be accepted).