Thrive Capital Portfolio Careers

Product Manager

Chai Discovery

Chai Discovery

Product
San Francisco, CA, USA
Posted on Jul 1, 2025

About Chai Discovery

Chai Discovery is re-architecting drug discovery by building frontier AI foundation models to design molecules.

The founding Chai team has brought together the leading researchers in this space, with seminal research accomplishments at top AI labs. The team has led AI-for-biology programs at premier labs, co-invented protein language modelling, built state-of-the-art folding algorithms, and sold AI adopted by top-10 pharma companies. The company is backed by top-tier investors, including OpenAI, Thrive Capital, Dimension, Conviction, Lachy Groom, Amplify, and many more.

We’re looking to add a few members to our team of scientists and engineers, who obsess over creating the most powerful AI models for antibody discovery, and turning them into products that can transform how medicines are made.

About the role

As the first Product Manager at Chai, you will translate leading-edge science into products that biopharma teams rely on daily. You’ll own the full lifecycle, from user research and market sizing to roadmap, sprint planning, and launch, for our AI models, APIs, and web tools that accelerate drug discovery. Success means clear product-market fit, delighted scientific users, and measurable impact on pipeline speed.

At Chai, we’re entering a pivotal stage. After years of foundational R&D, our models are moving beyond protein structure prediction and into real-world therapeutic engineering. We're now tasking our AI models on a broad spectrum of drug development challenges, at an exciting scale of wet-lab validation.

This is not a typical role — it’s a chance to push the boundaries of drug discovery by building some of the most advanced AI drug design models ever built.

About you

We’re looking for a mission-driven product builder who wants to define the gold standard for AI-powered drug-discovery products. You should have:

Product leadership:

  • 3-5 years of product-management experience in software or platform companies; at least 2+ years shipping ML- or data-driven products

  • Comfortable defining vision and OKRs, writing crisp PRDs, and prioritizing backlogs in fast-changing environments

  • Bachelor’s or advanced degree in Life Sciences, Computer Science, Bioengineering, or related field (dual business / science background a plus)

  • Working knowledge of modern ML pipelines and basic biotech concepts (protein structure, assays, in silico design)

Execution & collaboration

  • Proven track record running customer discovery, converting insights into features, and launching V0 → V1 products

  • Skilled at aligning cross-functional teams, ML researchers, wet-lab biologists, security, and BD, around shared milestones

  • Data-driven: comfortable setting success metrics, building dashboards, and making roadmap calls based on evidence

  • Able to discuss trade-offs with engineers and scientists in the same meeting

Mindset:

  • Bias for action and a willingness to iterate rapidly on early feedback

  • Clear communicator who can simplify complex science for external partners and internal stakeholders

  • Motivated by the chance to turn frontier AI into medicines that reach patients sooner

Nice-to-have experience:

  • Interest in biotechnology is preferred, but not mandatory

  • Prior work with computational-biology or cheminformatics tools

  • Experience engaging enterprise pharma customers or navigating regulated environments

  • Exposure to SOC 2 / ISO 27001 or other compliance-driven product processes

What we offer

  • Frontier technology: we’re developing the next frontier of AI-driven drug discovery that will fundamentally change how new therapeutics are created.

  • World-class team: opportunity to work with world-renowned leaders in the AI x biology and technology ecosystem who have created some of the most impactful advancements.

  • Highly competitive compensation: we offer highly competitive salary, equity package, and healthcare and wellness benefits.

  • Velocity and ownership: we move incredibly fast, which means continuous learning and career growth opportunities are a guarantee. Every team member owns a significant slice of the roadmap.

  • Strong team culture: Collaborative and supportive startup culture in a small and high-energy team who are guided by our mission to increase the efficiency of creating new medicines and positively impact millions of lives.