Engagement Director

Our Mission and Vision

Unlearn exists to transform clinical development by making every trial smarter. We harness data, AI, and digital twins to enable faster, more robust studies that bring life-saving treatments to patients faster. This mission drives everything we do as we partner with biopharmaceutical companies to redesign how clinical trials are planned, run, and analyzed.

We are defining the future of clinical development with unmatched scientific credibility, replacing uncertainty with AI-powered precision so decisions are clearer and trials are stronger. We don’t just disrupt the pharmaceutical industry, we create lasting change.

We believe AI will define the future of medicine, and we are committed to building that future responsibly, rigorously, and in close collaboration with our partners in clinical development.

About Our Team

We come from a variety of backgrounds ranging from machine learning to marketing—but regardless of where we come from, Unlearners share some common traits:

Unlearners are ambitious

; we aren’t intimidated by big, challenging goals.

Unlearners are disciplined experimenters

; we break down our big goals into smaller chunks and meet as often as necessary to track our velocity and iterate quickly.

Unlearners are gritty

; we never give up, setbacks just make us try harder.

• Unlearners are receptive to new ideas
• ; in fact, we hate being stuck with the status quo
• Unlearners are storytellers
• ; sharing information with each other and with the world is super important, too important to be boring. And, last but not least, Unlearners are team-oriented

; we put the mission first, the company second, the team third, and individuals last.

Headquartered in San Francisco, Unlearn was founded in 2017 by a team of world-class machine learning scientists. We have raised venture capital from top tier investors such as Altimeter, Insight Partners, Radical Ventures, 8VC, DCVC, and DCVC Bio, and completed our $50 million Series C in January 2024.

If our purpose and culture resonate with you, we invite you to apply.

The Role

We are seeking a seasoned, mission-driven Engagement Director to bring structure, visibility, and cross-functional leadership to how we deliver our services and products. We are looking for a leader who drives clarity and momentum across the company and can lead cross-functional delivery teams to ensure customer satisfaction, retention, and expansion.

Because all of Unlearn’s customers are biopharmaceutical companies, deep fluency in the pharma and clinical development is essential. You will partner closely with our Technology, Science, Product, Commercial, Marketing, and G&A teams.

This role reports directly to the Chief Commercial Officer and day-to-day will be the conduit between the delivery and commercial teams. The Engagement Director owns the customer relationship after contract signature. They translate sponsor priorities into terms the delivery team can act on, hold the account to its contracted commitments, and surface expansion opportunities for the commercial team to pursue.

Responsibilities

• Customer Relationship Management
• Build a deep and trusting relationship with customers, serving as a point of contact for customer satisfaction, retention, and expansion.
• Coordinate customer-facing timelines, milestones, and deliverables, ensuring internal delivery plans align with customer commitments.
• Identify opportunities to expand and strengthen customer collaborations and communicate these internally so the business can improve.
• Cross-Functional Leadership & Delivery
• Proactively identify risks, dependencies, and potential roadblocks in customer projects, and lead cross-team problem-solving workstreams to resolve them before they impact delivery.
• Drive accountability and clear communication across the delivery teams, defining priorities and keeping customer projects on track.
• Report progress on customer delivery, risks, and resource trade-offs to leadership on a regular cadence.
• Roadmap Ownership & Program Planning
• Track timelines, key milestones, interdependencies, and resource needs across customer engagements so leadership can plan resourcing and product delivery appropriately.
• Stand up project management practices, cadences, and resource-planning tooling, creating a single source of truth for customer projects without heavyweight process overhead.

Requirements

• 7+ years of experience delivering services or technology to clinical development groups at pharma or biotech sponsors: CRO, clinical tech vendor, or consulting.
• Extensive experience working with biopharmaceutical companies, with deep, demonstrated fluency in the pharma and clinical development landscape.
• Direct sponsor-facing ownership of accounts or engagements with a track record of leading a cross-functional team to delivery on customer engagements that include services, technology, and software products, and surfacing expansion opportunities in an existing account.
• Experience working between a commercial team and a delivery or technical team.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder-management skills, with the ability to lead and influence cross-functional teams without direct authority.
• Strong problem-solving instincts and a proactive approach to surfacing and resolving risks and roadblocks.
• Exposure to biostatistics or quantitative methods is strongly preferred.
• Bachelor’s degree in Business, Life Sciences, Engineering, or a related field; an advanced degree in a life-sciences or technical discipline is a plus.
• Comfort operating in a fast-moving, startup environment where this role defines the Engagement Director function.
• Based locally in San Francisco Bay Area, or remote and open to travel (25% of your time).