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Flagship ventures Interview Questions

flagship pioneering conceives, creates, resources and develops first-in-category life sciences companies. the firm’s institutional innovation foundry, flagship venturelabs®, is where flagship's team of scientific entrepreneurs systematically evolve ideas into new fields and turn previously undiscovered areas of science into real-world inventions and ventures. flagship manages more than $1.75 billion in funds and, since 2000, the firm has applied its hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster nearly 75 scientific ventures, resulting in $19 billion in aggregate value, 500+ issued patents and more than 50 clinical trials for novel therapeutic agents.

flagship pioneering conceives, creates, resources and develops first-in-category life sciences companies. the firm’s institutional innovation foundry, flagship venturelabs®, is where flagship's team of scientific entrepreneurs systematically evolve ideas into new fields and turn previously undiscovered areas of science into real-world inventions and ventures. flagship manages more than $1.75 billion in funds and, since 2000, the firm has applied its hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster nearly 75 scientific ventures, resulting in $19 billion in aggregate value, 500+ issued patents and more than 50 clinical trials for novel therapeutic agents.

Overview

Flagship ventures Interview Guides

You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests. What considerations should be made?

What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?

What is a key disadvantage of the F-test when compared to multiple t-tests?

Hundreds of Hypotheses

You are testing hundreds of hypotheses with many t-tests. What considerations should be made?

Let’s say we have a table with an <code>id</code> and <code>name</code> fields. The table holds over 100 million rows and we want to sample a random row in the table without throttling the database.

Write a query to randomly sample a row from this table.

Input:

<code>big_table</code> table

<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Columns</th>
<th>Type</th>
</tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
<tr>
<td><code>id</code></td>
<td>INTEGER</td>
</tr>

<tr>
<td><code>name</code></td>
<td>VARCHAR</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>

Write a query to randomly sample a row from a big table.

Random SQL Sample

Let’s say that your company is running a standard control and variant AB test on a feature to increase conversion rates on the landing page. The PM checks the results and finds a .04 p-value.

How would you assess the validity of the result?

Experiment Validity

Flagship ventures Salaries by Position

What if... you could use AI to impact an entire ecosystem of life science companies? Pioneering Intelligence (PI) is a Flagship initiative focused on developing and harnessing AI/ML based platforms for innovative applications in life sciences and beyond. We are looking for extraordinary computational scientists and engineers to work alongside our machine learning team to solve the most impactful challenges in AI for the life sciences. The Role Our AI Research Interns for Summer 2025 will work on fundamental problems in machine learning for biology, chemistry, and NLP. They will work closely with a team of interdisciplinary scientists consisting of ML and domain experts to advance the state-of-the art in machine learning and contribute to our ongoing research efforts. This is an exciting opportunity to be part of a fast-paced, highly dynamic entrepreneurial environment. We work on problems and use techniques like: <ul><li>Generative models for biomolecular design including flow matching, diffusion, and language models.</li><li>Long-context techniques, such as Mamba.</li><li>Activation steering.</li><li>Self-learning agentic systems.</li></ul> Key Responsibilities: <ul><li>Conduct fundamental research at the intersection of ML and biology in collaboration with an interdisciplinary team of scientists.</li><li>Experiment with large datasets and novel techniques. </li><li>Communicate your work to a multi-disciplinary audience.</li></ul> Basic Requirements: <ul><li>Current Master's or PhD student in CS or ML, or in a related field with experience with ML research and applications.</li><li>Fluency in Python and experience implementing ML methods with standard tools and packages (e.g., PyTorch, JAX).</li></ul> Preferred Requirements: <ul><li>Publications or experience in CS, ML, Computational Biology or a similar computational field.</li><li>Experience with large, high-dimensional datasets.</li><li>Experience with generative models, natural language processing, graphical neural networks, reinforcement learning, or similar.</li><li>Familiarity with software development, including git and public cloud computing resources (e.g. AWS, GCP, Azure).</li></ul> About Flagship Flagship Pioneering is a bioplatform innovation company that invents and builds platform companies, each with the potential for multiple products that transform human health or sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, Flagship has originated and fostered more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in more than $90 billion in aggregate value. Many of the companies Flagship has founded have addressed humanity's most urgent challenges: vaccinating billions of people against COVID-19, curing intractable diseases, improving human health, preempting illness, and feeding the world by improving the resiliency and sustainability of agriculture. Flagship has been recognized twice on FORTUNE's "Change the World" list, an annual ranking of companies that have made a positive social and environmental impact through activities that are part of their core business strategies, and has been twice named to Fast Company's annual list of the World's Most Innovative Companies. Learn more about Flagship at www.flagshippioneering.com. Flagship Pioneering and our ecosystem companies are committed to equal employment opportunity regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity or Veteran status. At Flagship, we recognize there is no perfect candidate. If you have some of the experience listed above but not all, please apply anyway. Experience comes in many forms, skills are transferable, and passion goes a long way. We are dedicated to building diverse and inclusive teams and look forward to learning more about your unique background. Recruitment & Staffing Agencies: Flagship Pioneering and its affiliated Flagship Lab companies (collectively, "FSP") do not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than candidates. The submission of unsolicited resumes by recruitment or staffing agencies to FSP or its employees is strictly prohibited unless contacted directly by Flagship Pioneering's internal Talent Acquisition team. Any resume submitted by an agency in the absence of a signed agreement will automatically become the property of FSP, and FSP will not owe any referral or other fees with respect thereto.

Flagship ventures Interview Questions

Overview

Flagship ventures Interview Guides

Flagship ventures Interview Questions

Flagship ventures Salaries by Position

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