Pod lead - Chemistry (Terminal Bench Science)

Hello,

Greetings from ZettaMine!!!

Freelancing Opportunity: We are hiring a Pod Lead – Chemistry (Terminal Bench Science) for a short-term Frontier AI Research, Computational Chemistry & Scientific Evaluation project across the following locations.

Eligible Locations: 🇧🇩 Bangladesh | 🇧🇷 Brazil | 🇨🇴 Colombia | 🇪🇬 Egypt | 🇬🇭 Ghana | 🇮🇳 India | 🇮🇩 Indonesia | 🇳🇬 Nigeria | 🇹🇷 Turkey

Role: Pod Lead – Chemistry (Terminal Bench Science)

Educational Eligibility: PhD, postdoctoral experience, or equivalent advanced experience in Chemistry or a closely related field.

Mode: Remote

Start: Immediate (expected to start next week)

Engagement Type: Short-Term Contract (3 weeks)

Mandatory Eligibility Criteria:

Technical Qualification:

• PhD, postdoctoral experience, or equivalent advanced experience in Chemistry or a closely related field.
• Strong programming skills in Python, C/C++, Julia, or Fortran, with proficiency in Linux and terminal-based environments.
• Hands-on experience in computational chemistry, molecular simulation, cheminformatics, or chemical data analysis.
• Proven experience reviewing code, scientific analyses, manuscripts, or research outputs.
• Strong understanding of chemical principles, molecular structures, chemical properties, computational methods, and numerical accuracy.
• Ability to validate computational results, chemical correctness, convergence, reproducibility, and scientific reliability.
• Experience evaluating molecular geometries, energies, thermodynamic properties, reaction mechanisms, or chemical simulations.
• Strong analytical skills to identify technical errors, incorrect assumptions, numerical issues, and unreliable evaluation methods.
• Experience mentoring or leading small technical or research teams.
• Excellent written communication skills for providing precise, constructive technical feedback.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Familiarity with tools such as PySCF, Psi4, ORCA, xTB, CP2K, NWChem, GROMACS, OpenMM, AmberTools, RDKit, Open Babel, ASE, or MDAnalysis.
• Experience with free-energy methods, reaction mechanism analysis, machine-learned potentials, or spectroscopy simulation.
• Familiarity with Docker, Git, CI systems, automated testing, and high-performance computing (HPC) environments.
• Experience designing scientific benchmarks, programming tasks, or simulation-based evaluations.

Availability:

• Minimum 40 hours per week.
• Availability for at least 8 hours per day, with a minimum of 4 hours of overlap with PST business hours.
• Willingness to work on a 3-week contractor assignment.
• Please note: This is a contract assignment with no medical or paid leave benefits.
• Candidates must be willing to complete the required Interest Check Form (ICF), AI Interview, and Delivery Review.

What You'll Work On:

• Lead and mentor a pod of approximately 5–10 technical trainers developing realistic, terminal-based scientific tasks for the Terminal Bench Science initiative.
• Review tasks end to end, including problem statements, molecular structures, spectra, datasets, force-field parameters, computational environments, reference solutions, and automated tests.
• Ensure tasks reflect authentic chemistry research workflows and require meaningful, multi-step scientific reasoning.
• Validate chemical correctness, units, charge and spin multiplicity, stereochemistry, molecular structures, computational methods, convergence, equilibration, and sampling adequacy.
• Verify that software versions, force fields, basis sets, functionals, libraries, and dependencies are properly configured and reproducible.
• Ensure numerical tolerances account for legitimate methodological, computational, and stochastic variations without accepting chemically incorrect results.
• Review automated graders to ensure they evaluate energies, molecular geometries, thermodynamic quantities, rate constants, spectral assignments, and molecular properties rather than output formatting alone.
• Identify hard-coded outputs, flawed assumptions, unreliable tests, and opportunities to bypass the intended scientific computation.
• Review tasks for chemical safety and potential dual-use concerns, escalating hazardous or controlled-substance-related content when necessary.
• Provide actionable written feedback, track revisions, and ensure quality issues are resolved before task approval.
• Onboard and mentor trainers, allocate tasks, monitor quality and productivity, and resolve technical blockers.
• Maintain documentation covering task guidelines, recurring issues, quality standards, and exemplary scientific tasks.

Interested candidates, please share your updated CV and LinkedIn profile at vyshnavi.e@zettamine.com.

BanThanks & Regards,

Vyshnavi E

ZettaMine