First Finance Hire
chaidiscovery · San Francisco office
ABOUT CHAI DISCOVERY
Chai Discovery builds the computer-aided design suite for molecules. Eli Lilly https://endpoints.news/eli-lilly-chai-discovery-sign-ai-software-deal/, GSK https://endpoints.news/chai-discovery-signs-gsk-deal-to-make-biologics-with-ai/, Pfizer https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2026/06/04/why-pfizer-and-eli-lilly-are-betting-on-this-13-billion-ai-drug-discovery-startup/, Bristol Meyers https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7496300911523246080/, argenx https://x.com/chaidiscovery/status/2077422480617267230?s=20 and Novartis https://www.chaidiscovery.com/news/novartis-partnership all use Chai to power drug discovery programs. AI is reinventing life sciences the same way it reinvented software engineering, and our team is building that future.
We train frontier models that learn the underlying foundations of biochemical structure and interaction. We pair this with a computational workspace to iterate on molecules from idea to medicine, helping scientists move faster and develop medicines beyond the reach of existing methods.
We value diverse perspectives and are ready to find greatness in unexpected places.
ABOUT THE ROLE
We are making our first finance hire. Someone we can trust to own Chai's financial operating system end to end.
Chai is a small, fast-growing company with complex financial operations; heavy spend on compute and data acquisition; and pharmaceutical partnerships with complex revenue recognition and compliance requirements. We need someone who can make sure the machinery underneath the business is exceptionally well run, and give us the visibility to make good decisions as we scale.
You will own the quality of our books and close process, build a trusted view of where our money is going, and take over the financial model and cash forecast. You'll manage accounting and finance vendors, improve all systems and controls, and lead our audit readiness.
Once the foundations are in place, we expect your attention will turn towards strategic questions: allocating capital, modeling major investments, negotiating important relationships, and generally supporting key decisions as we grow.
ABOUT YOU
You are a financial generalist who combines operational rigor with strong financial judgment. You are sophisticated enough to understand the entire financial picture of the company, but hands-on enough to personally chase down a strange invoice, manage an accounting firm, negotiate a vendor renewal, or rebuild a cash forecast. Nothing is beneath you if it matters to the business.
You likely have meaningful experience inside a startup. You may have been an early finance hire or second-in-command at a high-growth technology company, come from strategic finance after rigorous training in banking, or started in accounting and grown into a broader role.
Most importantly, you own outcomes. When something important falls between functions, your instinct is to understand it, fix it, and build a system so it stays fixed. All with a mindset of making complexity disappear and avoiding unnecessary process.
WE OFFER
The opportunity to work at the vanguard of AI research and frontier biology, with world-class people, on a mission that matters. We protect & promote a culture of high velocity and ownership. We compensate our team accordingly.