Principal Data Scientist, Formation Bio
Medical Imaging
$204.5-267k
Offers Equity
3+ days a week in office
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
Open for applications
Powering hyper-efficient, tech-driven drug development
101-200 employees
Open for applications
$204.5-267k
Offers Equity
3+ days a week in office
101-200 employees
Company mission
To bring new treatments to patients faster and more efficiently.
Role
Who you are
- Strong programming skills in Python with expertise in PyTorch/TensorFlow and medical imaging libraries
- Strong communication skills with proven ability to present complex imaging analytics to diverse stakeholders
Desirable
- PhD in Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, Medical Physics, or related field with focus on medical imaging
- 5+ years of post-PhD industry experience developing production-grade AI models for medical imaging applications
- Deep expertise in computer vision and deep learning architectures (CNNs, U-Net, Vision Transformers) for medical image analysis
- Proven track record with MRI and X-ray image analysis, including hands-on experience with DICOM standards and medical imaging software
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate with radiologists and clinical teams to translate medical insights into technical solutions
- Experience with regulatory submissions involving imaging endpoints or AI-based image analysis tools
- Experience with multi-modal imaging fusion and analysis (combining MRI, CT, PET data)
- Knowledge of clinical trial design and experience with imaging core lab operations
- Experience with federated learning or privacy-preserving techniques for medical imaging
- Understanding of radiomics and quantitative imaging biomarker development
- Experience with 3D image reconstruction and volumetric analysis
What the job involves
- As a Principal Data Scientist - Medical Imaging at Formation Bio, you will lead our efforts to integrate advanced imaging analytics and AI into our drug development pipeline. In this role, you'll pioneer the application of computer vision and deep learning to medical imaging data (MRI, X-ray, CT, PET) to accelerate clinical trials and improve patient outcomes
- You'll develop state-of-the-art models for automated image analysis, disease progression monitoring, and treatment response assessment. Working closely with clinical teams, radiologists, and drug development experts, you'll translate complex imaging data into actionable insights that drive key decisions across our portfolio. This position offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize how medical imaging is leveraged in pharmaceutical development while directly impacting patient care
- Lead the development of advanced deep learning models for medical image analysis, focusing on MRI and X-ray modalities for clinical trial applications
- Design and implement automated image processing pipelines for disease detection, segmentation, and quantification across multiple therapeutic areas
- Create innovative approaches for longitudinal image analysis to track disease progression and treatment efficacy in clinical trials, incl. AI-based biomarkers and surrogate endpoints
- Collaborate with clinical operations to integrate imaging AI solutions into trial protocols and workflows
- Partner with regulatory teams to ensure imaging biomarkers and AI models meet FDA standards for clinical trial endpoints
- Build scalable infrastructure for processing and analyzing large-scale medical imaging datasets from multi-site clinical trials
- Present imaging insights and model performance to executive leadership and external partners
Our take
Clinical drug trials are lengthy and expensive, delaying the supply of vital new drugs to patients and costing lives. For Formation Bio, this is an efficiency issue - one which it hopes to solve with its end-to-end automation solution.
According to the company, its approach has teams running medical trials twice as fast and at half the cost. This success has pushed Formation to expand beyond supporting trials into developing assets itself. In 2025, it reached a major milestone by licensing its first drug in a deal worth up to hundreds of millions. Alongside this, the company has also added an early immunology program to its pipeline, signalling a broader push into in-house development.
Now a Unicorn, with partners including Pfizer, Sanofi, Novartis and 23andMe, Formation Bio is steadily embedding itself within the Big Pharma ecosystem. How far it can go remains an open question, but the prospect of cheaper drugs and faster innovation is becoming harder for the industry to ignore.
Kirsty
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Insights
30% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 3 rounds)
Jun 2024
$372m
SERIES D
Sep 2021
$156m
SERIES C
Total funding: $530.3m
Company benefits
- Flexible Time Off: We have a flexible PTO policy and we encourage our team members to take the time that they need to recharge
- Parental Leave: All parents receive 12 weeks of fully paid bonding leave to welcome a newborn, adopted, or fostered child, and birthing parents are eligible for an additional 6-8 weeks of paid leave
- Comprehensive Benefits: All full time employees have access to health, vision, and dental insurance. Additionally, we provide pre-tax commuter benefits, access to a 401k plan, short and long-term disability and life insurance.
- Education & Career Development Resources: Formation Bio offers a plethora of professional development resources to employees, including a yearly L&D stipend, internal mobility opportunities, in depth trainings, leadership coaching, and more.
- Community: Our teams collaborate closely to achieve our mission, supporting each other across functions and priorities. We build connection through team-building events, quarterly company gatherings, a biennial company-wide retreat, and various Employee Resource Groups.
Company values
- Think in first principles: We rigorously interrogate all possible paths to understand how we can do things differently and faster. We challenge assumptions, ask why, and solve problems from the ground up
- Be a scientist: We are curious and we continuously learn. We steelman, not strawman in debates. We listen, rapidly iterate, and make the best decisions with the evidence we have
- Deliver care: We lead with empathy. We value different perspectives, collaborate across teams, and support one another. We give and receive direct, actionable and timely feedback to hold ourselves and others to a high bar
- Champion the mission: We keep the mission as our north star and deliver impact for patients. We hold ourselves accountable for our wins and failures and keep moving forward
Company HQ
Midtown South, New York, NY
Articles
Leadership
Benjamine Liu
(Co-Founder & CEO)Worked as a computational biologist at various Neurology departments, following a D.Phil in computational Biology and Psychiatry at Oxford. They are also an Advisor at Harvard Business School.
Linhao Zhang
(Co-Founder)Linhao is also the Founder of Foundation 649. Previously, they were a Product Engineer at Oscar Insurance, a Software Engineer at Salesforce, and co-founder of Day 7 Photography.
Dan Neil
(CTO)Prior to joining Formation Bio in 2025, Dan was the Chief Data Officer at Tessera Therapeutics. Before that, they spent nearly 7 years at BenevolentAI in various roles, including SVP of AI & NY Site Lead and CTO.
Dale Klasko
(Senior Vice President, People)Dale built her career as a campus recruiting leader and strategic people business partner at growth-stage companies in the adtech & finservices industries.
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