Machine Learning Engineer

Do you want to use your Machine Learning skills to help discover treatments for rare disease patients?

Healx is looking for a talented Machine Learning Engineer to join our Tech team to help develop our drug discovery platform and discover new treatments for rare diseases.

This role will report to our Director of Tech Strategy and will contribute to developing and applying cutting edge machine learning approaches, knowledge graph reasoning and agentic workflows that underpin our Drug Discovery workflows to find novel treatments for rare diseases.

You will be part of a highly cross‑functional and collaborative team that brings together machine learning engineers, software engineers, bioinformaticians and drug discovery scientists. You will work closely with domain experts to translate complex biological questions into robust, scalable machine learning solutions, and your work will have a direct and meaningful impact on our drug discovery programmes.

We encourage you to provide a covering letter to explain why you think you'd be successful in this role.

Healx is an AI-powered tech bio company that is redesigning drug discovery. With 10,000 rare diseases affecting 400 million people globally, 90% of which have no approved treatment, Healx is on a mission to pioneer the next generation of drug discovery to help rare disease patients in need. We combine data, artificial intelligence and deep pharmacology expertise to develop treatments more quickly and cheaply than traditional drug discovery. Diversity and inclusion sits at the heart of our mission to help people with rare diseases, and we believe that attracting and empowering a diverse team is critical to achieving this goal. We welcome applications from people from all backgrounds and walks of life. Below we have included the qualities that we feel are required for you to excel in this role; however we appreciate that people can apply transferable skills and experience. If you think you have what it takes, love our mission and resonate with our values but are worried you don't tick every box - we still want to hear from you and encourage you to apply!

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• Care for Rare - Rare disease patients are at the heart of what we do
  
• Grow as individuals - We are learners always seeking to enhance our expertise
  
• Win as a team - We strive to remain inclusive and diverse and we celebrate successes and lessons together
  
• Innovate and deliver - Our mission requires rapid innovation and calculated risks that won’t compromise our high standards
  

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• Build automated reasoning over large knowledge graphs and proprietary methods for efficient generation of experimentally testable therapeutic hypotheses
  
• Contribute to building, maintaining and improving our rare‑disease knowledge graphs used to identify and reason over novel therapeutic hypotheses
  
• Develop agentic tools and workflows to enable our teams to unlock insight from proprietary data and large datasets
  
• Contribute and advocate for best engineering practices across our tech teams
  

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• You’ve built a strong understanding of Healx’s drug discovery workflows, our rare‑disease knowledge graphs and the key users of our platform
  
• You’ve delivered at least one meaningful improvement to our knowledge graph reasoning or hypothesis‑generation stack (from prototype through to production), with appropriate evaluation, testing and documentation
  
• You’re operating effectively in our hybrid, cross‑functional environment—communicating progress and trade‑offs clearly, partnering well with scientists and engineers, and demonstrating ownership from discovery through delivery
  
• You’re consistently applying and advocating for strong engineering practices (e.g., code quality, reviews, reproducibility, experiment tracking, monitoring/observability where relevant), helping raise the bar across the team
  

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• You have 2-5 years professional (in academia or industry) experience in machine learning, artificial intelligence or related field
  
• You are excited about taking on new challenges and responsibilities in a mission‑driven startup aiming at improving patient outcomes
  
• You have an advanced degree (masters, PhD) in machine learning, biochemistry or related field with a focus on applied research or equivalent industry experience applying machine learning to complex real‑world problems
  
• You have a strong software development experience in Python and a good appreciation of the principles of software engineering
  
• You thrive in a highly cross‑functional environment and you appreciate the opportunity to step up and leave your mark by taking ownership of meaningful technical challenges, contributing ideas that shape the direction of our platform and driving solutions from concept through to deployment
  
• You are able to work independently to scope, plan and deliver end‑to‑end machine learning solutions, managing your own priorities effectively and communicating progress and blockers proactively
  
• You are comfortable navigating a degree of ambiguity, making pragmatic decisions when needed, and you know when to seek input from the broader team to ensure quality and alignment
  

Healx works from a modern accessible office in the centre of Cambridge within easy reach of the train station. We offer a flexible, diverse and inclusive working environment that considers your individual needs and believes in maintaining a sustainable work‑life balance and we are open to discussing flexible working arrangements.

We are a hybrid team operating on a highly collaborative model that values synchronization and pair programming.

You will be welcomed by a team of colleagues with decades of accumulated experience in their areas of expertise, happy to help you develop your own skills in a highly collaborative environment and who are keen to provide guidance and support in your personal and career development plans.

Healx will provide you with support and guidance to help you do your best work and make an impact. We offer flexible working and believe in maintaining a sustainable work‑life balance. If you require any reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process, please let us know — we’re happy to accommodate.

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• Financial - Competitive salary, share options, 7% employer pension contributions, life insurance of 4x base salary
  
• Health and Wellbeing - Private medical insurance, 25 days annual leave (plus bank holidays) with the option to purchase additional days to support a healthy work‑life balance, wellbeing support via Spill and our Employee Assistance Programme
  
• Hybrid Working - We will only consider UK‑based applicants for this position. We offer flexible and remote working options, home office set‑up allowance, periodic in‑person team days for company‑wide collaboration and celebration
  
• Family Friendly - Enhanced family leave policies, miscarriage and fertility leave, flexible working practices
  
• Personal Development and Growth - Personal learning and development budgets, regular personal development conversations and career support
  
• Community Engagement and Support - One paid day off per year to volunteer for a cause aligned with our mission of supporting patients living with rare diseases; the opportunity to hear from and engage with patient groups and communities who offer us valuable insights into the experiences of those affected by rare diseases.
  

For more information about Healx and how we use your data please go to https://healx.ai/privacy/

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, or assessing responses. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans. If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please contact us.