Bioinformatics/Computational Biology Expert

Pay: Up to $75/hour

Opportunity Overview

Handshake is looking for experienced computational biologists and bioinformatics scientists to support AI research through flexible, part-time contract work. This is not a traditional job — you'll draw on your hands-on experience in genomics, NGS analysis, or computational biology to evaluate AI-generated content and provide feedback that helps AI reason like a practicing computational biologist or bioinformatics scientist.

This is an ongoing, project-based opportunity you can take on alongside your current role.

What You'll Do

• Use your domain expertise to create expert-level bioinformatics problems and scenarios grounded in real pipeline design, sequence analysis, and research workflows

• Review and evaluate AI-generated responses for technical accuracy, reproducibility, and alignment with how the work is actually done

• Provide structured written feedback to help improve AI model performance

• Complete tasks at your own pace with no set schedule or minimum hour requirement

Qualifications

Ideal candidates meet all three of the following:

• Industry/research experience — a track record of first-author publications and ownership of non-trivial bioinformatics pipelines that frontier AI models cannot reproduce

• Degree — PhD in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Genomics, or a comparable quantitative/life sciences discipline. An MS paired with strong industry experience also qualifies

• Sub-domain depth — demonstrated expertise in one of the following areas:

  • NGS/genomics pipelines (BWA, GATK, samtools) and sequence analysis (BLAST, Biopython)

  • Statistical genetics

  • Structural biology (PyMOL, AlphaFold)

Candidates who meet at least 2 of the 3 qualifications above are also encouraged to apply.

Additional qualifications (not required, but strengthen your application)

• Proficiency with R/Bioconductor and other standard bioinformatics or computational biology software environments

• Experience owning end-to-end genomics or NGS/sequencing pipelines in an academic or industry research setting

Required for all applicants

• Must have US work authorization

• Strong written communication and attention to detail

• Ability to explain complex biological concepts clearly

• Ability to work independently in a remote, asynchronous environment