Senior Quantitative Scientist, ML/LLM

Verana Health, a digital health company that delivers quality drug lifecycle and medical practice insights from an exclusive real-world data network, recently secured a $150 million Series E led by Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC) and Novo Growth, the growth-stage investment arm of Novo Holdings. 

Existing Verana Health investors GV (formerly Google Ventures), Casdin Capital, and Brook Byers also joined the round, as well as notable new investors, including the Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, THVC, and Breyer Capital.

We are driven to create quality real-world data in ophthalmology, neurology, urology, and oncology to accelerate quality insights across the drug lifecycle and within medical practices. Additionally, we are driven to advance the quality of care and quality of life for patients. DRIVE defines our internal purpose and is the galvanizing force that helps ground us in a shared corporate culture. DRIVE is: Diversity, Responsibility, Integrity, Voice-of-Customer and End-Results. Click here to read more about our culture and values.

Our headquarters are located in San Francisco and we have additional offices in Knoxville, TN and New York City with employees working remotely in AZ, CA, CO, CT, FL, GA, IL, LA, MA, MN, MD, MI, NC, NJ, NV, NY, OH, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, WA, WI All employees are required to have permanent residency in one of these states. Candidates who are willing to relocate are also encouraged to apply. 

Candidates based in the Bay Area, New York City, and Knoxville, Tennessee will be give priority consideration. For these locations, the position will follow a hybrid work model, with 3 days per week in office and the remaining days working from home. 

• We believe that diverse teams build better products and experiences. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where every employee feels valued, respected, and empowered to do their best work. We welcome and encourage applications from people of all backgrounds, identities, and lived experiences.
• Candidates must be legally authorized to work in the United States. We are unable to provide visa sponsorship (e.g., H-1B) or OPT/STEM extension support for this position at this time.
• While we are remote friendly, we have a preference for candidates within close commuting proximity to our Bay Area or NYC office hubs.

You will report into the Data & Science department and work with not only the Data & Science team but also Product Management, Engineering, and Medical. As Verana Health reinvents how research happens with data and technology in the healthcare space, we are working to solve complex real-world problems across multiple therapeutic areas, including urology, ophthalmology, and oncology. We are looking for a Senior Quantitative Scientist with experience working with messy unstructured electronic health record (EHR) data, including clinical text and imaging data, to support Verana Qdata® products and real-world insight generation. Direct experience working with ophthalmology, urology, and/or oncology clinical data is considered a plus.

As a Senior Quantitative Scientist working cross-functionally, you will ensure our data products are generated with fit-for-purpose approaches and meet the necessary quality requirements. Built on the values of cross-functional collaboration, scientific rigor, and continuous learning, the Data & Science team strives to improve patient care by advancing the use of real-world clinical data, machine learning, and clinical expertise to generate meaningful healthcare insights.

This role combines technical leadership, organizational development, and cross-functional partnership to drive the delivery of clinically meaningful machine learning systems at scale. These systems support the generation of real-world evidence and clinical insights used across research, commercial, and healthcare applications. The role requires hands-on technical engagement across model development and deployment workflows.

• →Evaluate, fine-tune, deploy, and monitor pretrained language models for healthcare applications
• →Drive cutting-edge research on language modeling with emphasis on scientific accuracy and explainability
• →Communicate analysis results via presentations to a multi-disciplinary audience using clear, intuitive visualizations
• →Establish and maintain best practices for data exploration, end-to-end model development and deployment lifecycle, and data/code/documentation management
• →Work on Qdata development to enable commercial projects leveraging real-world data through responsibilities such as creation of study plans, implementation of analyses, development of algorithms, and/or writing of publications
• →Collaborate cross-functionally with teams (e.g., Commercial, Product, Medical, Engineering/Technology, etc.) to translate clinical investigation questions into detailed data analytics requirements for internal and external projects
• →Provide mentorship and knowledge sharing to team members in standardizing machine learning/natural language processing best practices

• Doctorate in a quantitative discipline (e.g., data science, computer science, machine learning, biostatistics, health economics, etc.) with 3+ years of experience or Master’s with 5+ years of experience
• 5+ years of hands-on experience with messy data (e.g., electronic health records, outcomes data) and analytical methodologies
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with machine learning model implementation & deployment, especially on clinical notes; experience with imaging data is a strong nice to have
• 3+ years of hands-on experience with transformer architectures and large language models (e.g.,modern generative LLMs, fine-tuning, RAG workflows, alongside foundational models like BERT/RoBERTa) for tasks including NER, text classification, and relation extraction
• Strong familiarity with programming languages, especially Python, Pyspark, R, SQL
• Strong familiarity with coding platforms, especially Databricks, Amazon Sagemaker, Visual Studio Code
• Strong familiarity with unstructured text processing techniques
• Familiarity with clinical datasets and coding systems such as ICD, CPT, and RxNorm
• Ability to work effectively with cross-functional teams
• Clear communication skills and able to deliver internal/external presentations
• Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects with high attention to detail

Final note:

You do not need to match every listed expectation to apply for this position. Here at Verana, we know that diverse perspectives foster the innovation we need to be successful, and we are committed to building a team that encompasses a variety of backgrounds, experiences, and skills.

Caution to Job Applicants: Be vigilant against potential scams. Verana Health will never ask for payment or personal information upfront. Verify company details, cross-check job offers, and trust your instincts. Any legitimate job offer will be received by a Verana Health email account (not via gmail, text or other means) Report suspicious activities to protect yourself and others in the job-seeking community.

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