Role Overview You will design and qualify the immunological assays that determine what our platform can see. The questions we can answer about human immune biology across hundreds of donors, across perturbation conditions, and across disease contexts are bounded by how well our measurements capture what matters and exclude what doesn't. At population scale, getting this right is both high-leverage and difficult: systematic biases that would be invisible in a single study compound across hundreds of donors and propagate into every downstream model and decision.

We are looking for a scientist whose primary orientation is the integrity of biological measurement. Someone who thinks about measurement as a system with failure modes, not as a set of protocols to execute. You will design and qualify the immunological assays that determine what our platform can see. The questions we can answer about human immune biology - across hundreds of donors, across perturbation conditions, across disease contexts - are bounded by how well our measurements capture what matters and exclude what doesn't. You will work at the interface of bench measurement and computational analysis, ensuring that our analytical systems are not only rigorous but designed to ask the right questions of the biology.

Who You Are

• You think about measurement as a biological problem, not a procedural one. You understand that assay design interacts with the biology being measured, and that the difference between a decision-grade readout and an exploratory one is determined before any data is collected.
• You have a track record of catching problems others missed. You have a story about an assay or measurement you or your team trusted that turned out to be systematically wrong, and it changed how you work.
• You are quantitative and comfortable with data. You explore your own datasets, write code when it helps, and build intuition from data directly rather than waiting for someone else to analyze it. You do not need to be a computational biologist, but you gravitate toward quantitative reasoning.
• You understand enough immunology to know what you are measuring and why it matters. You can distinguish a biologically meaningful signal from a measurement artifact, not just statistically, but because you understand the immune biology in the tissue context you are studying.
• You are energized by being part of an interdependent team. You thrive when your work is tightly coupled with others, when you can see how what you do shapes what the team can do. As the function grows, you look forward to mentoring junior scientists and building something beyond your own contributions.

What You'll Do

• Design, optimize, validate, and qualify immunological assays across multiple platforms, including multiparameter flow cytometry, multiplex immunoassays (e.g., Luminex/MSD), cell-based functional assays, and imaging. Establish fit-for-purpose performance criteria, rigorous controls, and documentation practices.
• Own measurement quality as a system: define what variance looks like across donors, batches, and timepoints; implement drift monitoring; establish reference standards that make longitudinal comparison possible.
• Partner with automation teams to adapt assays for liquid-handling and robotic platforms while maintaining biological fidelity and data quality.
• Collaborate closely with our computational biology team to ensure the data you generate is structured, trustworthy, and interpretable. You are their most important collaborator on the bench side.
• Execute platform studies and partner-contracted work, contributing to the full experimental workflow from tissue culture through analytical readout.
• Produce clear SOPs, qualification reports, and experimental documentation consistent with internal standards and partner requirements.

Qualifications

• PhD in immunology, cell biology, biochemistry, or a related discipline; or Master's with equivalent depth of industry experience.
• 5+ years of experience in assay development, biomarker qualification, analytical method validation, or a related measurement-focused role in biotech, pharma, diagnostics, or a tools environment.
• Deep hands-on expertise with immune measurement platforms, particularly multiparameter flow cytometry and at least one of: multiplex immunoassays (Luminex, MSD, ELISA), cell-based functional assays, or high-content imaging. What matters is that you understand how these systems work and fail, not just how to operate them.
• Demonstrated comfort with quantitative analysis: scripting (Python, R, or equivalent), data visualization, and working directly with complex datasets.
• Immunology knowledge sufficient to evaluate whether a measurement is capturing what it claims to capture in a tissue-level immune context.
• Experience transferring or adapting assays to automated or semi-automated systems is valued.

Location & Details

• Based in San Francisco, CA.
• In-person role with onsite assay development responsibilities.

Parallel Bio is an equal opportunity employer committed to fostering an inclusive and respectful workplace. We encourage applications from individuals of all backgrounds, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability, or sexual orientation. Compensation Range: $155K - $170K