Description
The Role:

As a Senior Life Sciences Knowledge Engineer at Norstella, you will sit at the intersection of deep scientific domain expertise and applied AI development. This role will be embedded within a group of life science thought leaders, but will interface across cross-functional teams of data scientists, machine learning engineers and data engineers. Your work centers on curating high-quality fine-tuned datasets which speak to the desired end-to-end behavior we want a model to internalize. The datasets and annotation guidelines/frameworks that govern it will play a critical role in our efforts to deliver predictive analytics and insights across clients.
Responsibilities:

• Translate complex clinical, regulatory, and life sciences subject matter expertise/requirements into repeatable patterns that can be taught to a model through gold standard examples, working closely with data scientists and machine learning engineers to shape the model's schema, vocabulary, and target behavior.
• Through close collaboration between SME and technical colleagues, develop novel methods and parameters of model behavior, based on interpretation of requirements and quick iteration cycles.
• Design, build, and continuously refine fine-tuning datasets consisting of input/output pairs that demonstrate desired end-to-end behavior across the target task surface area, edge cases, and known failure modes.
• Author and maintain the annotation and labeling guidelines that govern dataset construction, ensuring the schema, vocabulary, and definition of "what good output looks like" remain consistent across contributors.
• Define the task taxonomy and output schema in close partnership with data scientists, ensuring data architecture aligns with downstream evaluation metrics and production requirements across NPD.
• Train and enable subject matter expert graders running eval rounds, including translating feedback to how data scientists implement improvements at the tool call layer.
• Run iterative dataset experiments: identify where the model is failing, design targeted example slices to close those gaps, and partner with the human-in-loop SMEs to measure the impact of each dataset change.
• Maintain provenance, licensing, and compliance documentation for every dataset, ensuring all training data meets GxP, regulatory, and intellectual property standards expected in life sciences and clinical settings.
• Conduct new proofs of concept for novel domain capabilities.
• Contribute to Norstella's knowledge base and taxonomy work and help design new agentic workflows based on domain-grounded language models.

Qualifications:

• Graduate degree in life sciences, medical sciences, computer science or equivalent professional experience.
• At least 3 years of professional experience in production-grade life science datasets, including with AI-enabled applications.
• Experience working with structured publishing platforms and data tools; comfort with automation concepts
• Experience working with and statistically analysing large and complex data sets, including data cleaning and preprocessing.
• Experience working with Generative AI, especially LLMs, including agents, throughout the entire software development lifecycle (SDLC).
• Experience creating MCPs and consuming them into Agentic workflows.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work independently.
• Excellent communication skills, especially between technical and non-technical teams.

Bonus points if you have experience in:

• Experience in developing, evaluating, deploying, and monitoring algorithms and models from proof-of-concept, experimental stages through production, in a reproducible, auditable, GxP-compliant manner.
• Experience with the AWS ecosystem, specifically with services like S3, ECS, API Gateway, SageMaker, and Bedrock.
• Familiarity with CI/CD processes, especially as applied to ML operations (MLOps), preferably with Azure DevOps.
• Experience in fast-paced novel development cycles.

Optional Immigration Section:

Please Note - All candidates must be authorized to work in the United States. We do not provide visa sponsorship or transfers. We are not currently accepting candidates who are on an OPT visa.
Benefits:
• Medical and Prescription Drug Benefits
• Health Savings Accounts (HSA) or Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA)
• Dental & Vision Benefits
• Basic Life and AD&D Benefits
• 401k Retirement Plan with Company Match
• Company Paid Short & Long-Term Disability
• Paid Parental Leave
• Paid Time Off & Company Holidays

The expected base salary for this position ranges from $90,000 to $105,000. It is not typical for offers to be made at or near the top of the range. Salary offers are based on a wide range of factors including relevant skills, training, experience, education, and, where applicable, licensure or certifications obtained. Market and organizational factors are also considered. In addition to base salary and a competitive benefits package, successful candidates are eligible to receive a discretionary bonus.