[Hiring] Research Scientist @Function Health

Role Description

Function Health is building something that has not existed before: a multimodal, longitudinal picture of health for hundreds of thousands (soon to be millions) of people. The Function proactive health dataset includes whole-body MRI, 100+ blood biomarkers, radiology reports, questionnaires and, increasingly, wearables data, all linked to the same individual and refreshed over time. The Medical Intelligence Lab (MIL) at Function exists to turn that data into an early-warning system for every member. In a nutshell, we aim to design a new model of proactive, predictive and preventative health.

The World Model team’s job is at the core of that ambition. We are building models that can do two things:

• Represent a member’s health today from whatever data exists historically.
• Predict how that state evolves, what the next lab panel is likely to show, what the next scan is likely to find, and eventually how that trajectory changes under an intervention.

As a Research Scientist on this team you will be a key technical contributor, working directly with the Team Lead and MIL’s Chief Medical Scientist. You will design and train the models, own the evidence that they work, and ship them as the pretrained foundation upon which a portfolio of MIL products and tools build. The work is expected to reach large numbers of members and also the scientific literature; we publish, and we deliver.

Qualifications

• PhD in machine learning, computer science, biomedical engineering or a related field with 1-2+ years of professional experience, or MS/BS with 5+ years building and evaluating ML models on real data.
• Demonstrated depth in at least one of:
  • Temporal / longitudinal modelling (sequence models, neural ODE/CDE or state-space models, forecasting with irregular sampling, survival or progression modelling).
  • Self-supervised or foundation-model pretraining on medical imaging (3D MRI/CT) or multimodal data.
  • Multimodal fusion of imaging with tabular, EHR or biomarker data.
• Strong Python and PyTorch; experience training at scale (multi-GPU, large datasets, experiment tracking) and writing code others build on.
• Rigorous evaluation instincts: statistical thinking, calibration, error analysis, and the habit of asking whether a result would survive a larger validation set.
• Publication record at top ML or medical-imaging venues (e.g., MICCAI, NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR), or equivalent evidence of research output delivered into production.
• Clear written and verbal communication with technical and clinical audiences.

Requirements

• Differentiate between predictive and causal claims: we forecast from observational data and validate before we assert. Design analyses so that limitations are explicit and reviewable.
• Work within a PHI-sensitive, regulated environment: de-identified data only, licensable pretrained weights/data, documentation that meets regulatory review.
• Write it down: experiment logs, design notes, and the periodic “what we learned” retrospectives that shape the roadmap. Publish at venues such as NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, CVPR, ICCV/ECCV, AAAI, MICCAI etc in order to establish the lab.

Benefits

• Stock options
• Comprehensive health, dental, and vision plans for you and your family
• Wellness and commuter benefits
• Competitive vacation policy
• A culture that emphasizes learning, collaboration, and thoughtful engineering
• Remote work flexibility

Company Description

We’re aiming to build a diverse team and inclusive company culture. We are an equal opportunity employer and do not discriminate based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, age, disability, veteran status, genetic information, marital status, or any legally protected status.

Important Notice: Legitimate communication from the Function Health team will always come from an email address ending in @functionhealth.com. Function Health will never request personal information such as banking details or payment during the hiring process. Please be cautious of communications or job offers that come from other email domains, instant messaging platforms, or unsolicited calls. If you ever have doubts about the legitimacy of a communication, please reach out to us directly at [email protected].