LONDON, UK

HEAD OF TRANSLATION (UK)

Home / Careers / Head of Translation (UK)

Jump to:

Who We Are

Pillar VC is a pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm investing in engineers, researchers, and scientists building solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. We are currently investing out of Pillar IV, a $175M fund. Our investments include Latent Labs, Asimov, Circle, Abridge, Algorand, Jellyfish, Neural Magic, Edison Scientific, and PathAI.

We’re entering a golden age with unmatched potential for breakthrough research to become world-changing companies. 50% of our investments have emerged from research organisations and universities at the cutting edge, such as Harvard and MIT. We are unafraid to challenge the status quo of how we develop technologies to aid society.

Pillar partnered with the UK’s Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) two years ago to launch the Encode: AI for Science Fellowship – £10.9 million to back AI / ML engineers as they advance frontier science and build new ventures, organisations or tools across ARIA’s Opportunity Spaces. 32 Encode Fellows across 2 Cohorts, 25+ open-source tools and datasets, and multiple companies raising multiple millions later, the mission hasn’t changed – find the best AI for science talent and back it. Around Fellows we’ve built an AI for Science community, anchored by our office in King’s Cross and brought together by >100 events since March 2025.

Now we’re doubling down. We are:

Hiring 3 senior team members – Translation, R&D and Operations.
Building our bench of UK-focused Venture Partners, Faculty Partners and Encode Advisors, working in parallel to our growing team of Venture Associates.

We are building on strong foundations. This is an instrumental time to join.

About the role:

When a Fellow hits a crossroads you’re the person they pull up a chair next to. Our Head of Translation accelerates how Encode Fellows, and early founders across our AI for Science ecosystem, get their research from lab to public company or public good, and has a real say in who we back.

At the core of this role are three key responsibilities:

Own ‘victory planning’ for Encode Fellows. Each Cohort is ~14 Fellows, joining full-time for 12 months before they graduate to be alumni. Your objective is for every Fellow to ‘translate’ their work in the most appropriate, and most ambitious, way – driving results across the cohort. To achieve this, you’ll first work with the Head of R&D, Director and Venture Partners to select fellows – having real influence over who we take. Then, once selected, you’ll be the primary point of contact for Fellows – pressure testing how they do customer discovery, incorporate, hire, launch, write grant applications, publish, fundraise, open-source and more. You’ll champion their work internally and externally, and bend probability in their favour to help them achieve their goals. Success metrics can range from follow-on funds raised to design partners secured.
Shape the Fellowship, and our community and communications around it. You’ll have creative freedom to create a culture of ambition across our community. You’ll evolve our day-to-day, oversee coworking weeks and workshops, and run conversations with guest speakers (historic examples have been Encode Advisors) – working closely with our Community Lead. Our mission is not to be overly programmatic, but create a rich learning environment for Fellows, and how we achieve that will be led by you.
Drive the conversation on what ‘translation’ means, and needs. You’ll think critically about where critical gaps exist, and how Pillar, the Encode Fellowship and our work with ARIA can be a voice for closing them. It’s in our nature to experiment – designing tools like the Challengescape, and running programmes like Frequency Bio. You’ll build our voice on this topic.

Our activities in the UK are shifting into a new phase – there’s an exciting amount of white-space, we have big ambitions, and you’ll be expected to drive towards them from Day 1.

You’ll be backed by Pillar’s depth of expertise in the US: our Venture Partners, team and established US operations (helpful when so many startups go US-UK early) and will also work closely with ARIA team, Programme Directors and Creators (grantees).

Why this roles matters:

Two of the Fellowship’s foundational responsibilities are 1) back world-class AI / ML engineers, and 2) accelerate their desire to apply their skills to scientific challenges across ARIA’s Opportunity Spaces. You’ll have an important voice in the first, and will own how we achieve the second.

In doing so, you’ll help bring into existence a new generation of tools, discoveries and organisations. One Encode Fellow helped a UK lab identify 14 plasma proteins that drive lung cancer risk, giving us a 5-year head start and an on-market drug to better tackle it – they’re now building a company. This is one instance, amongst 32 scientific bets so far, and we are only just getting started.

Who we are looking for:

An ideal Head of Translation candidate has been a founder before, or been very early in a deep tech company. They may start a company again, but want to go deep across a portfolio of AI for Science builders for a few years first.

Experience we think is required:

You’ve built a science-based venture, or research organisation, as a founding team member. You’ve built something someone has paid for or funded, and know what it takes.
You’ve led or been close to fundraising. You’ve pitched, budgeted, structured term sheets or similar.
Your background is technical, and you know your way around a lab. You’ll be in the weeds as Fellows apply their AI / ML expertise to hard science challenges, you need to be able to share their frame of reference. Ideally you have an MSc or PhD in a relevant field.
You’ve coached, or been coached. You understand how it can be transformational, and how it can be done badly, and ideally have experience mentoring early builders either through work or in your spare time.

Unsure if you meet all of these requirements? Apply anyway! We’re a deeply interdisciplinary team and strongly believe that anything can be learnt.

Regardless of title, we’re looking for people who:

Go the extra mile for the mission: you get the ‘why’, so you’re committed to the ‘how’. We’re charting new ways to enable AI for science and backing the next generation of builders. You obsess over this as much as we do.
Are a systems engineer in their spare time: matching emerging knowledge to real-world funding opportunities and/or problems. In some form, you’re already doing this job for the love of the game.
Assume deep ownership: you’ll never expect another team member to pick up your slack, have a high bar for your own work, and are the first to call out your own mistakes.
Have an existential itch: how do you want to edit the world? What gets you pounding the table? How does your work at Pillar align with this? We expect this in the Fellows and founders we back, it starts with the team, too.
Are constantly striving for excellence: does this existential itch extend to yourself? We’re looking for colleagues who are constantly seeking ways to improve, upskill, be curious, show up better and create an environment where others are similarly motivated.
Value EQ in equal measure to IQ: good culture is jetfuel.

A strong character fit is important for this team. We’re looking for people who are: low ego, high transparency, life-long learners, have big ambitions and see nothing as being beneath them. This is a team sport.

Key activities

There will be no such thing as an average week. You’ll report to the Director, and will work closely with our Head of R&D and Community Lead to drive towards individual and team goals. Your work could look like:

Building hands-on with individuals:

Giving feedback on a Fellow’s hiring plan. Sense-checking their team shape, job description, salaries, outreach and interview pipeline. Brainstorming with them on sourcing great candidates.

Being an accountability mechanism for design partner discovery. Fellows are deeply technical. You’ll ensure they put their tools down enough times to validate what they’re building, and share lived experience building a pipeline of potential partners.
Hands-on fundraising advice. Reviewing investor pipelines, data rooms, and decks. Making introductions and providing advice, across VC, philanthropy and government capital. We’ll plug you into our ecosystem and you’ll work closely with our Director on this.
Sitting down with ARIA Creators and Programme Teams to map translational outcomes. For example, a current programme team is looking across their portfolio to map where startups, or FROs, are hidden in plain sight. You could jump in, and bring your expertise to this.

Building internally, across the Fellowship:

Identifying future Encode Fellows we haven’t yet met, bringing them into the ecosystem. Engaging the very best of global AI for science talent, and understanding what they need to excel.
Providing a ‘translation vote’ on our pipeline of future Fellows. Your opinion will have significant weight on who we fund, with a few Fellow places yours to select. You’ll do due diligence on the translational possibilities of world-class scientific ideas the Head of R&D (and our wider team) has scoped.
Crafting a culture of failure internally. Challenges, celebrations and more. This is critical to our success.
Running fellow workshops and co-working weeks. Leading the content of our cross-cohort gatherings, setting a high culture bar and creating a rich learning environment, in partnership with our Community Lead and Director.
Running internal review meetings. We meet regularly to map how to remove roadblocks and/or add jet fuel across the group.
Owning reporting and impact tracking, compiling recent learnings. Working with the Director to communicate to ARIA and other funders the learnings, failures and successes of the cohort – in quarterly reports, annual meta-analyses, and anything in between. There’s a lot to be creative with here.

Building externally, across our ecosystem:

Building our community of advisors, venture partners and founder mentors. It takes a village, you’ll play a key role in building it. Historic examples include ‘Decoded’ showcases for Cohort 1, ‘Encode Supper Clubs’ for our advisor community, and Builder Sessions with Pillar portfolio founders.
Running roadshows across the UK, Europe and US to meet potential Fellows. You’ll work closely with our Community Lead to activate an ecosystem through fireside chats, salons, dinners and more. Historic examples have included our AI for Science Roadshow, Nucleate partnership roadshow, and more.
Attending roundtables, speaking publicly, to share learnings from the Fellowship. You’ll be an important voice in this ecosystem – we aim to be a tide that raises all ships.
If you decide, experimenting with public communication about the cohort. How do we tell the story of their ambitious goals, and of them as builders?

What this role is not:

This is not an investment position. You will work very closely with many very early companies, a unique seat from which you are encouraged to share your opinion with the wider Pillar team, but your personal ambitions in this role are not to be an investor. That said, experience in VC or investment is welcomed, and will be useful in this role.
This is not a co-founder position with Encode Fellows. You accelerate their work, but don’t claim or tie your personal ambitions to it.

Benefits

Competitive comp package
Internal software and compute budget
Unlimited holiday policy
Health and dental insurance

Monthly welfare stipend
Snacks and coffee on tap in the kitchen, and lunch provided

Apply

Contract: Full-time.
Compensation: Competitive, experience adjusted.
Reports to: UK Director. Works closely with Research Lead, Community Lead, and Venture Partners.
Location: King’s Cross, London – 5 days a week in person, with lots of flexibility and no internal meetings before midday. Occasional UK and international travel, estimated at 20%.

Pillar UK is not a licensed visa sponsor, so applicants need the right to work in the UK. If you’re eligible for a visa in your own right (e.g. Global Talent, High Potential Individual, Graduate), we’ll support your application by covering visa and Immigration Health Surcharge costs.