Head of AI (Artificial Intelligence)

About the role...

The Chief Information and Data Office is looking for a Head of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Our team is building cloud-native, machine learning based systems that tackle problems at the intersection of breeding, gene editing, and agronomy, working closely with data scientists, bioinformaticians, quantitative geneticists, and crop scientists. As the Head of AI you will lead the strategic planning of the design, implementation and direction of Inari’s AI initiatives.

Location: Cambridge, MA, Ghent, Belgium, or West Lafayette, IN

What you’ll do

• Build, lead and deploy Inari’s AI strategy and drive the implementation of sustainable, high-impact AI projects
• Collaborate cross-functionally with the engineering, product, operations, and other business teams to define the strategic AI roadmap and develop success metrics
• Identify and implement best-in-class data science methodologies and tools to enhance existing products and solutions
• Conduct end-to-end data insights strategy from a variety of disparate life sciences datasets producing impactful visualization and reporting meaningful findings
• Rapidly identify and prototype methods and visualizations to answer key business questions
• Identify opportunities to apply the latest advancements in AI to Inari’s products
• Stay up-to-date on industry trends and best practices and build effective and impactful external networks to foster continued innovation of Inari’s AI strategies 
• Lead a growing team of AI Engineers and provide analytics leadership and direction as they design, build and deploy new products 
• Build and cultivate the right partnerships and alliances with internal and external partners
• Foster excellence through coaching and mentoring of your team 
• Set the standards and expectations of your team, especially around diversity and inclusion 

You bring… 

• 10+ years of progressive experience in Data Science with demonstrated leadership capabilities
• Strong experience in AI/ML, computational biology, bioinformatics or related, with proven track records (e.g. publications in top-tier journals and conferences, patents, awards, etc.)
• BA/BS in Computer Science, Statistics, Engineering, BioInformatics, Data Sciences, Applied Math, Operations Research, or a related field
• Expert proficiency in Python, R, or related software environments
• Experience building and deploying end-to-end AI solutions that deliver product value
• A deep understanding of current data science best practices in areas such as NLP, computer vision, audio/video analysis, search, predictive analytics, recommender systems, and deep learning
• Proven leadership in complicated context, able to influence and engage the strategic and technical partners in a matrix organization
• Strong commitment to our team’s values: learn from every decision, no heroes/heroines, thoughtful inclusion, and fail fast.
• Excellent interpersonal, organizational and communication skills
• Active interest in learning new technology or domains.  We are an organization that goes across many disciplines.  
• Desire to work in a mission driven organization focused on sustainability and how we grow food

Bonus qualifications:

• Experience working with agtech or biotech.  
• Experience with Scala, Go, Arrikto
• Experience working with computational scientists and understanding their diverse needs.
• Deep Learning frameworks: Keras, Tensorflow, Scikit-learn, Spark-MLib
• Experience with high-throughput data generation pipeline, from sequencing platform to data analysis environment
• Familiarity with AWS cloud computing services and its service offering (e.g. RDS, Athena, SageMaker)

Learn more about us:

http://inari.com

Helping farmers feed the world: https://seedworld.com/faster-breeding-will-help-farmers-feed-the-world/

World Economic Forum Global Innovator: https://inari.com/news/inari-selected-for-world-economic-forums-global-innovators-community

Bloomberg: Inari AgTech Startup https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-12/agtech-startup-inari-nabs-new-funding-at-1-2-billion-valuation

Forbes: Gene editing with CRISPR https://www.forbes.com/sites/lanabandoim/2021/05/21/gene-editing-seeds-with-crispr-is-transforming-agricultural-biotechnology/?sh=63d255e2163d