Associate Scientist (NMR & LC-MS Expertise)

Job Title: Associate Scientist

Location: South San Fracisco CA – 100% onsite

Duration: 24 months with possible extension

Terms: Contract W2

Description:

100% South San Francisco onsite

Standard Monday–Friday, 8 AM – 5 PM local time; no expected overtime or weekend work

2-year contract

The ideal candidate is a hands-on Associate Scientist with a bachelor’s or master’s degree in organic or physical chemistry and practical experience operating NMR and LCMS instrumentation. They should be comfortable calibrating, maintaining, and troubleshooting analytical equipment, and familiar with Bruker TopSpin or equivalent data-acquisition software. The candidate should demonstrate solid understanding of organic chemistry principles, communicate clearly with chemists and cross-functional teams, and work effectively in a lab environment that supports multiple scientists. Strong English communication, organizational skills, and reliability are essential. Recent graduates with academic + internship experience are welcome, but PhD candidates will be considered overqualified.

Job Details

Education: Bachelor’s degree in Biology, Biochemistry, or Analytical Chemistry

Experience: Minimum 2 years of relevant experience in a biopharmaceutical working environment

Summary

This role involves performing experiments, organizing data, and analyzing results with minimal supervision. The position requires planning, conducting, and monitoring experiments, ensuring data integrity, and compliance with protocols and applicable regulations.

Key Responsibilities

- Monitor or follow established experimental designs and protocols to perform routine tasks and studies

- Plan, conduct, analyze, and record experiments; provide interpretation of data

- Transfer experimental methods from literature to the lab and modify as needed

- Develop and implement new protocols with moderate review

- Engage coworkers in scientific discussions

- Communicate data and interpretations to the work group

- Develop systems to ensure quality data

- Operate standard laboratory equipment and major instruments/techniques

- Troubleshoot equipment and experimental issues effectively

- Contribute to internal/external reports, presentations, regulatory documents, invention disclosures, and/or patents

- Participate in department-wide support efforts such as safety, recruiting, and committees

- Train staff and/or supervise others as needed

- Coordinate and organize resources to complete tasks

- Demonstrate sound judgment and know when to seek input versus acting independently

Top 3 Must Have Skill Sets:

• Degree in Organic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, or a related field.

• General instrumentation experience with the ability to set up novel experiments and calibrate NMR and LC-MS instruments.

• Experience with the operation, troubleshooting, and maintenance of Bruker NMR spectrometers, HPLC and MS equipment (Agilent, Waters).

• Experience using 1D (1H, 13C, 19F, 31P, etc.) and 2D (COSY, TOCSY, NOESY, HSQC, HMBC, etc.) multinuclear solution-state NMR experiments for structure confirmation.

• Ability to run automated acquisition and analysis software programs such as Bruker Topspin or Agilent MassHunter.

• Experience with NMR and LC-MS data analysis packages such as ACD/Spectrus or Mestre Nova.

• Familiarity with the principles of organic chemistry, analytical and separation sciences, and automated liquid handling systems.

Day to Day Responsibilities:

• Oversee the general operations of the NMR facility and provide hands-on new user instrument training to chemists.

• Maintain the lab’s NMR spectrometers and all associated equipment, performing or organizing all necessary calibrations, repairs and upgrades.

• Acquire NMR data for quality control of small molecule drugs, intermediates, and starting materials.

• Collaborate and communicate effectively with a team of chemists and separation scientists.