Scientist - AI Translational

ASTRAZENECA UK LIMITED; Cambridge; On-site; GBP 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

AstraZeneca UK Limited in Cambridge is seeking a Senior Scientist to build and benchmark innovative AI capabilities for translational science. You will partner with translational scientists, bioinformaticians and AI experts to frame high-value scientific questions and deliver robust data products that support evidence-based decisions across R&D.

You will combine strong applied AI experience with scientific curiosity, evaluate AI rigorously, communicate findings clearly and help translate

Qualifications

• MSc or equivalent experience in computer science, machine learning, statistics, mathematics, physics or another highly quantitative discipline.
• Demonstrated experience developing, fine-tuning, evaluating or deploying modern AI systems, including foundation models, large language models, multimodal models or deep learning approaches.
• Advanced Python skills with reproducible analytical code and version control.
• Strong communication and collaboration with scientists and engineers.

Responsibilities

• Identify and prioritise high-impact scientific problems with translational scientists and bioinformaticians.
• Design, prototype and scale AI capabilities using state-of-the-art models and architectures including RAG and multimodal systems.
• Partner with engineers to translate AI approaches into robust, reusable products.
• Contribute to scientific strategy, technical standards, code quality and knowledge sharing across the team.

Skills

Advanced Python

AI systems

Model benchmarking

Communication

Education

MSc in CS/ML/quantitative field

PhD in data science / related field

Tools

Git

Retrieval-augmented generation tools

Job description

We are seeking a Senior Scientist to build and benchmark innovative AI capabilities and products for translational science. You will partner closely with translational scientists, bioinformaticians and AI experts to frame high-value scientific questions, integrate data products and tools to deliver robust solutions that support evidence-based decisions across research and development. You will combine strong applied AI experience with scientific curiosity. You will evaluate AI rigorously, communicate findings clearly and help translate promising prototypes into reusable capabilities and products with meaningful scientific and patient impact.

Responsibilities

• Partner with translational scientists and bioinformaticians to identify and prioritise high-impact scientific problems.
• Design, prototype and scale AI capabilities using state-of-the-art models, tools and architectures, including retrieval-augmented generation, agentic workflows and multimodal AI systems where appropriate.
• Partner with engineers to transition promising AI approaches into robust, governed and reusable products.
• Contribute to scientific strategy, technical standards, code quality and knowledge sharing across the team.
• MSc or equivalent experience in computer science, machine learning, artificial intelligence, statistics, mathematics, physics or another highly quantitative discipline.
• Demonstrated experience developing, fine-tuning, evaluating or deploying modern AI systems, including foundation models, large language models, multimodal models or deep learning approaches.
• Proven ability to rapidly assess emerging AI techniques and apply them to real-world scientific and industry challenges.
• Advanced Python skills and experience producing clear, tested, reproducible analytical code using collaborative version control.
• Contributions to open-source AI projects, leading AI conferences (NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, EMNLP, AI for Science venues) or impactful industrial AI products.

Desirable Skills

• PhD or equivalent experience in data science, computer science, statistics, bioinformatics, computational biology or a related quantitative discipline.
• Experience analysing genomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, single-cell, spatial or other multi-omics data.
• Knowledge of translational medicine, drug discovery, human disease biology or biomarker development, particularly in respiratory, immunology or infectious disease.
• Experience designing rigorous AI evaluation frameworks and benchmarking state-of-the-art methods against established baselines.
• Strong communication, problem-solving and stakeholder-management skills, with a collaborative and delivery-focused mindset.

Company Culture

• At AstraZeneca AI is central to transforming science and accelerating the potential of medicines. You will join a collaborative community of scientists and technologists, with the space to test new ideas, apply cutting edge approaches to meaningful problems and help create solutions that can positively impact patients' lives.
• In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility.
• When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines.