VP Research (Foundation Models)

Visium, based in Zürich, seeks a VP Research (Foundation Models) to lead pre-training and development of AI-native systems for regulated industries, particularly biologics. The role requires hands-on expertise in large-scale distributed training, data pipelines, and scientific foundation models, with a focus on real-world deployment and technical leadership.

Visium combines strategic insight, cutting-edge AI, and deep expertise in regulated industries to build AI-native systems that transform business operations. The company aims to deliver productized AI that scales in value, not just incremental improvements. As a VP Research, you will be a hands-on technical leader, shaping architectures and training runs alongside a founding team of elite researchers, not managing managers.

Responsibilities

• Design and execute pre-training strategies for biologics foundation models built from scratch, covering architecture, data, representation, scaling, and evaluation across modalities.
• Continue pre-training and adapt vertical language models for use in regulated industries.
• Manage the full training stack, including data pipelines, distributed training, scaling laws, evaluation frameworks, checkpointing, and failure recovery.
• Set research direction, technical standards, and conduct reviews for a small founding research team.
• Translate advanced AI research into robust models suitable for real-world, regulated applications.

Requirements

• Proven world-class experience in pre-training, from institutions like Meta/FAIR, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, Mistral, or equivalent academic research.
• Deep expertise in large-scale distributed training, including parallelism strategies, scaling laws, optimization at scale, and debugging training instability.
• Demonstrated experience in acquiring and preparing data at scale.
• Strong track record of publications or successfully shipped AI models.
• Experience in pre-training scientific foundation models for biologics, including protein, genomic, molecular, structural, multi-omics, or other specialized domains.
• PhD in a relevant scientific or technical field.
• Ability to code and remain hands-on with technical details.
• Willingness to work on-site in Switzerland, either in Lausanne or Zurich.

What the company offers

• Access to dedicated, in-place compute infrastructure for running actual pre-training runs.
• A founding research role with real technical authority and decision-making power.
• Direct collaboration with top-20 pharmaceutical companies to develop and deploy leading-edge models.
• Direct access to the founding team and involvement in shaping company strategy.
• Opportunity to publish research and open source work.
• Competitive compensation package including equity.
• A flexible work culture emphasizing freedom and responsibility.
• A position with the potential to impact thousands of people and influence the company’s future.
• An international, passionate team known for exceptional achievements and a collaborative, mission-driven mindset.

About the company

Visium integrates strategy, deep technical expertise, and product development into a unified approach. Unlike traditional consultancies or product firms, the company combines all three to solve complex real-world problems at scale. Each engagement enhances their products, and each deployment accelerates future work, creating a continuous improvement cycle. The company is driven by a focus on measurable outcomes.

• Combines strategy, technical depth, and product development into a single, cohesive approach.
• Uses consulting to stay close to real-world challenges and products to solve them at scale.
• Each project improves their products and makes future engagements faster and more effective.
• Driven by a strong focus on outcomes and measurable impact.