Research Associate (RL Environments)
Anthrogen
San Francisco, CA · $100k–$150k a year · Posted July 7, 2026
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November 2026
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Pay compared with the market
This listing pays about $125,000 a year. Across 41 open research associate listings that state pay, the middle half runs $63,000 to $95,000 and the median is $75,000. That is 67% above the median, above the middle half of those listings.
Listed pay is what employers advertise, not what people are paid.
How AI is used in this kind of work
AI use among life, physical, and social science technicians, all other is little observed so far. Measured exposure for life, physical, and social science technicians, all other: 10% (little observed).
Share of this job’s tasks that AI is already used for at work, from real usage. It is not a forecast of job loss, and a low number means no use seen yet. Source: Anthropic Economic Index.
Skills this job asks for
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About the job
About Anthrogen
Anthrogen is engineering post-modality biology. Today's modalities reflect historical contingencies in biological progress, not fundamental categories. We develop the AI systems that design modular biological machines — and the experimental infrastructure to instantiate them.
A core part of that infrastructure is a robotic lab that can run biology at a scale and consistency humans can't match. To get there, our robots need to learn from the best: expert scientists demonstrating how real molecular biology gets done. That's where you come in.
The role
As a Research Associate, you'll run molecular biology protocols on our robotic platforms and, in doing so, generate the demonstration data we use to train policies for autonomous experimentation. You're not just doing the science — you're teaching our robots to do it. Every clean cloning run, every well-executed prep is a training example that moves us closer to a lab that designs and runs its own experiments.
This is a rare seat: half expert wet-lab scientist, half the person who teaches a robot to be one.
What you'll do
- Execute molecular biology protocols — cloning, transformations, PCR, protein expression and purification, assay development — to a high standard of reproducibility.
- Operate and teleoperate our robotic systems to perform these protocols, producing high-quality demonstration data.
- Work closely with our ML and robotics teams to surface failure modes, improve data quality, and expand the library of protocols the robots can learn.
- Help redesign bench workflows so they translate cleanly to automation.
- Grow with a rapidly scaling autonomous lab, taking on more ownership as we do.
Who you are
- Hands-on molecular biology experience (BS/MS in a life science or equivalent bench experience). You're meticulous, reproducible, and have excellent lab technique.
- A genuinely great gamer. Fast, precise hand-eye coordination, comfort with controllers and complex interfaces, and strong spatial reasoning — we'll train you on the robots, and the skills transfer more than you'd think.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and the pace of an early-stage lab.
- Excited, not threatened, by the idea of automating parts of your own job to allow you to focus on the parts that only people can do. That's the whole point, and you think it's cool.
Bonus points
- Experience with lab automation or liquid handlers (Opentrons, Hamilton, Tecan).
- Robotics, teleoperation, or hardware tinkering experience.
- Some Python or scripting.
- A competitive or high-skill gaming background — speedrunning, fighting games, sim racing, FPS, whatever proves the hands.
Logistics
Onsite in San Francisco — the robots live here, and so should you.
Equity: 0.01-0.1%.