Senior Scientist, Separation Sciences Milton Park, England

Your work will change lives. Including your own. We are seeking a Senior Separation Scientist to join our Chemistry Automation team at our labs in Milton Park. In this primarily lab-based role, you will be responsible for maintaining and operating an analytical and purification suite within the experimental Chemistry Automation Platform. You will work closely with synthetic and automation chemists, ensuring the delivery of purified compounds and high-quality analytical data to meet drug discovery program needs.

Working in our state-of-the-art laboratories, with a fleet of 10 highly specialised HPLC and SFC instruments, you will be encouraged to evaluate and deploy the latest technical developments to create efficient, holistic processes that support multiple drug discovery programs across the portfolio.

In this role, you will:

• Maintain and operate a fleet of ten+ highly specialised HPLC and SFC instruments as part of the experimental Chemistry Automation platform, including day‑to‑day operation, troubleshooting, and preventative maintenance, partnering with vendors and internal support teams as needed.
• Own the purification lifecycle from crude material to pure compound, including automated fraction consolidation and QC checks.
• Design and implement new processes, workflows, and techniques (such as chromatographic logD and EPSA) to improve the capability and capacity of the analytical suite as we grow and develop our automated platform for drug discovery programs.
• Provide separation science expertise to guide chemical synthesis workstreams and module development in cross‑functional matrix teams.

The Team You’ll Join

You’ll join the Milton Park based Chemistry Automation group, a multidisciplinary team of chemists and automation specialists who partner closely with discovery and platform teams across Recursion. The group operates a state-of-the-art Automation Studio, supported by synthesis and spectroscopy laboratories, that combines automated synthesis and purification, high-throughput experimentation, and integrated analytical workflows to deliver high-quality small-molecule synthesis for our discovery portfolio.

Day to day, you’ll collaborate with synthetic, analytical, and automation chemists, technicians, and platform engineers to deliver pure compounds and high-quality reaction data. The team values practical problem-solving, clear communication, and a continuous‑improvement mindset, and you’ll be encouraged to contribute to both project delivery and the evolution of our tools and processes over time.

The Experience You’ll Need

• MSc/BSc Chemistry, Analytical Sciences, Pharmaceutical Sciences or related science with strong industrial experience in purification and separation science in synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry and drug discovery.
• Proven experience in the operation of analytical LC‑MS and SFC‑MS instrumentation.
• Proven experience in analytical to preparative scale up strategies, and the operation of mass guided purification systems.
• Experience with chiral screening and purification methodologies.
• Proven experience troubleshooting and maintaining state‑of‑the‑art instrumentation.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal, with ability to communicate technical information to a non‑specialist audience while working across multiple projects.

Working Location & Compensation

This is a lab-based role in our Milton Park, Oxfordshire office. Employees are expected to work on-site 100% of the time, with occasional flexibility. At Recursion, we believe that every employee should be compensated fairly. Based on the skill and level of experience required for this role, the estimated current annual base range for this role is £70,400 - £93,500 (GBP). You will also be eligible for an annual bonus and equity compensation, as well as a comprehensive benefits package.

The Values We Hope You Share

We act boldly with integrity. We are unconstrained in our thinking, take calculated risks, and push boundaries, but never at the expense of ethics, science, or trust. We care deeply and engage directly. Caring means holding a deep sense of responsibility and respect - showing up, speaking honestly, and taking action. We learn actively and adapt rapidly. Progress comes from doing. We experiment, test, and refine, embracing iteration over perfection. We move with urgency because patients are waiting. Speed isn’t about rushing but about moving the needle every day. We take ownership and accountability. Through ownership and accountability, we enable trust and autonomy—leaders take accountability for decisive action, and teams own outcomes together. We are One Recursion. True cross‑functional collaboration is about trust, clarity, humility, and impact. Through sharing, we can be greater than the sum of our individual capabilities.

Our values underpin the employee experience at Recursion. They are the character and personality of the company demonstrated through how we communicate, support one another, spend our time, make decisions, and celebrate collectively.

More About Recursion

Recursion is a clinical‑stage tech‑bio company that uses an AI‑native, end‑to‑end drug discovery platform to decode biology and accelerate the development of medicines across oncology, rare disease, neuroscience, immunology, and other therapeutic areas. The Recursion OS integrates biology, chemistry, and clinical development into a unified intelligence system, enabling faster, better, and larger‑scale translation of complex science into medicines that matter.

Recursion is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected under applicable federal, state, local, or provincial human rights legislation. Accommodations are available on request for candidates taking part in all aspects of the selection process.