Machine Learning Research Engineer, Scientific AI

The posting, as Just Food Company wrote it

Just Food Company is on a mission to build a healthier, safer, and more sustainable food system—starting with what’s on your plate. From pioneering plant-based eggs to making real meat without slaughter, we’re reimagining the future of food in ways that are better for people and the planet.

We’re a lean, passionate team of scientists, chefs, engineers, and operators who believe that doing hard things well can make a meaningful difference. We’ve brought groundbreaking innovations to market, like Just Egg and GOOD Meat, and we’re just getting started.

If you’re excited by big challenges, real impact, and the chance to shape what the future tastes like—we’d love to meet you.

Learn more about us and our products →

About Us

Just Food Company uses science and technology to build a better food system.

Our work brings together protein science, food science, machine learning, product development, and commercial execution. We investigate proteins, understand how their properties translate into food functionality, and use those insights to create products that can compete on taste, performance, nutrition, affordability, and scale.

We believe machine learning can fundamentally change both how we conduct scientific research and how we operate as a company. We are looking for an exceptional Machine Learning Research Engineer to help us build that capability.

This role has two connected mandates.

The primary focus is R&D. You will build machine learning systems that help us identify, evaluate, and validate proteins with valuable food functionalities. Our goal is to create a faster learning loop between prediction and experimentation: identify promising proteins, predict how they may perform in food, select the most informative experiments, and use experimental results to continuously improve subsequent predictions and decisions.

The second mandate is applying AI across Just Food Company. You will work with teams across the organization to identify important workflows that AI can materially improve and build practical systems that help people access knowledge, analyze information, make decisions, and execute their work more effectively.

This is an opportunity for someone who wants to apply modern machine learning to challenging scientific problems while also helping shape how an organization uses AI more broadly.

About the Role

As a Machine Learning Research Engineer, you will work at the intersection of machine learning, scientific research, and practical implementation.

Within R&D, you will develop models that connect protein sequence, structure, biochemical properties, and experimental data to functional performance in food. You will work closely with protein scientists, food scientists, and product developers to determine which proteins to investigate, what experiments to run, and how to learn systematically from every result.

Depending on the problem, your work may involve protein representation learning, graph and geometric deep learnin
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isted in this posting.

What matters most is exceptional machine learning ability, strong engineering fundamentals, scientific curiosity, and evidence that you can learn quickly and turn difficult problems into working solutions.

What Success Looks Like

Within R&D, success means helping us identify better protein candidates, choose more informative experiments, predict functional outcomes more effectively, and learn faster from experimental results.

Across Just Food Company, success means identifying high-value opportunities for AI and building practical systems that measurably improve how teams access information, make decisions, and execute their work.

Ultimately, success means creating a tighter loop between data, prediction, experimentation, learning, and action — both in our science and across the company.

The total package

We develop our salaries using market data, internal benchmarks, and candidate experience to ensure fairness and competitiveness. All full-time team members receive:

• Competitive base salary
• Equity
• Up to 100% employer-paid medical, dental, and vision benefits (up to 90% for dependents)
• Flexible time off

Compensation : The expected base salary range for this role (based in Emeryville, CA/full-time) is $160,000 – $200,000 per year. Final compensation will be based on skills, experience, and overall contribution to the role.

Additional Information & Requirements

This is a full-time regular position based onsite (5 days/week) at our headquarters in Emeryville, CA. We are prioritizing local candidates at this time.

At this time, Just Food Company is unable to sponsor or transfer employment visas. Candidates must be authorized to work in the United States without current or future employer sponsorship.

In compliance with federal law, all new hires must verify their identity and eligibility to work in the United States and complete the required Form I-9 upon hire.

Just Food Company and its subsidiaries participate in E-Verify.