AI & Data Engineer, Data Discovery Services

Bristol Myers Squibb; Princeton (NJ); On-site; USD 88,000 - 106,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits

Flexibility

Growth opportunities

Job summary

Bristol Myers Squibb in Princeton, NJ is hiring an AI / Data Engineer to join the Data Discovery Services team within Enterprise Data Platforms. You will build pipelines, enrich metadata with taxonomy, and enable retrieval-augmented generation with vector embeddings, contributing to AI-powered discovery across the enterprise.

This hands-on role focuses on Python development, data pipelines, search optimization, and API development to expose metadata capabilities for AI agents and apps.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field; Master’s preferred.
• Proven data engineering or software engineering experience delivering production pipelines.
• Proficient Python; primary language.
• Proficient SQL.
• Experience with Databricks and AWS Glue.
• Strong data engineering fundamentals: ETL/ELT, data modeling, data quality, orchestration.
• Familiarity with AWS services (S3, Lambda, API Gateway, Glue).
• Experience with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch.
• Understanding metadata management and data cataloging.
• Strong problem-solving and willingness to learn.
• Good communication and teamwork.

Responsibilities

• Build Python pipelines that pull metadata from enterprise data catalogs, enrich with taxonomy tags, and publish to the discovery platform.
• Tune and optimize search indexes to ensure results match user needs.
• Build a semantic knowledge layer with vector embeddings to grow a data inventory supporting retrieval-augmented generation (RAG).
• Maintain integrations that sync ontology and taxonomy changes into the discovery platform.
• Investigate and resolve data pipeline issues across Databricks and AWS Glue, add data quality checks.
• Build API endpoints and MCP servers that expose search and metadata capabilities.
• Design metadata pipelines that map cross-domain dataset relationships and add to the cross-domain join catalog with confidence scores.
• Analyze search patterns and improve the discovery experience so the system learns and improves over time.

Skills

Python

SQL

Data engineering

ETL/ELT

OpenSearch/Elasticsearch

Databricks

AWS Glue

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field

Master’s degree preferred

Tools

Databricks

AWS Glue

OpenSearch

S3

Lambda

API Gateway

Docker

Job description

At Bristol Myers Squibb, our employees often ask, “Who are you working for?”—a question that fuels collaboration, accountability, and urgency in our work. Our purpose-driven culture inspires us to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines to prevail over serious diseases. We offer uniquely interesting and meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and a supportive environment that values inclusion, wellbeing, flexibility, and comprehensive benefits. This is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it.

Position Summary

Join the Data Discovery Services team within Enterprise Data Platforms, where we deliver and maintain the data foundation platforms that power discovery, search, and data accessibility across the Bristol Myers Squibb enterprise. We run multiple search and discovery services used across the company -- and we're building the next generation of AI-powered discovery on top of them. Our work makes enterprise data findable, accessible, and actionable for teams across the organization. At the core of this is a semantic knowledge layer -- metadata, taxonomies, and relationships that describe what data means and how it connects -- curated as a data inventory that helps AI work reliably across the enterprise. This is a high-impact team where engineering, search, and applied AI come together to solve real problems at scale.

Why Join Us?

• Work with a modern stack -- Databricks, Amazon Web Services (AWS), OpenSearch, vector search, semantic knowledge layers, graph databases, and AI agents.
• Build real AI-powered discovery capabilities, not proofs of concept.
• Grow your skills across data engineering, search, and applied AI on the same team.
• Use AI-assisted development tools (Claude, Copilot) in your daily workflow.
• Contribute to open-source projects and shared accelerators.
• Clear path to grow into senior engineering, search specialization, or AI engineering roles.
• Make enterprise data findable and accessible for teams working to improve patient outcomes.

Job Responsibilities

As an AI / Data Engineer, you'll be a hands-on Python developer building the pipelines and integrations that make enterprise data more discoverable. Your primary focus is data engineering — pipelines, metadata enrichment, transformations, and platform integrations.

You’ll also contribute to search and AI-powered retrieval as you grow into the role. Working alongside data engineers, search engineers, and data scientists, this is hands‑on engineering role — you’ll write code, build pipelines, ship features, and own what you deliver.

• Build and maintain Python pipelines that pull metadata from enterprise data catalogs, enrich it with taxonomy tags and ownership information, and publish it to the discovery platform.
• Tune and optimize search indexes -- adjust analyzers, boost fields, and test queries -- to ensure results match what users need.
• Build a semantic knowledge layer -- chunking documents, generating vector embeddings, and enriching them with semantic knowledge metadata -- to grow a data inventory that supports retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) and helps AI systems and large language models (LLMs) find and use the right context.
• Maintain integrations that sync ontology and taxonomy changes into the discovery platform, so classifications stay current.
• Investigate and resolve data pipeline issues across Databricks and AWS Glue, trace root causes through metadata enrichment flows, and add data quality checks to prevent recurrence.
• Build API endpoints and Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers that expose search and metadata capabilities to applications and AI agents.
• Design metadata pipelines that map cross-domain dataset relationships and add them to the cross-domain join catalog with confidence scores.
• Analyze search patterns, capture user feedback, and improve the discovery experience so the system learns and improves over time.

Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, Data Science, Information Science, Engineering, or a related field. Master's degree preferred.
• Demonstrated proficiency in data engineering, software engineering, or a related technical discipline, with a track record of delivering production data pipelines.
• Proficient Python skills -- this is your primary language day-to-day.
• Proficiency in Structured Query Language (SQL).
• Experience with Databricks and AWS Glue for data pipelines and transformations.
• Solid data engineering fundamentals: extract-transform-load (ETL/ELT) patterns, data modeling, data quality, and pipeline orchestration.
• Familiarity with AWS cloud services (S3, Lambda, API Gateway, Glue).
• Experience with OpenSearch or Elasticsearch.
• Understanding of metadata management and data cataloging concepts.
• Effective problem-solving skills and willingness to learn.
• Good communication skills and ability to work collaboratively in a team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with semantic knowledge layers, RAG patterns, vector search technologies, and building AI-ready data inventories.
• Familiarity with semantic search, embeddings, chunking strategies, relevance tuning, and semantic knowledge metadata (entity relationships, taxonomies, context enrichment).
• Exposure to AI agent patterns, MCP, or large language model orchestration frameworks.
• Experience with ontology or taxonomy technologies (such as Turtle, Resource Description Framework, Web Ontology Language, or SPARQL query language) or management platforms.
• Familiarity with graph databases or knowledge graph technologies.
• Experience with metadata enrichment, data lineage, or data quality frameworks.
• Exposure to Azure OpenAI, Google Vertex AI, or Amazon Bedrock.
• Experience with Docker, Elastic Container Service (ECS), or CloudFormation.
• Prior exposure to pharma or life sciences.

We hire for skills and capabilities, not just credentials – if this role excites you, but doesn’t perfectly match your resume, we encourage you to apply anyway.

Compensation Overview

Princeton - NJ - US: $87,810 - $106,399

The starting pay range(s) listed above is for full-time employees (FTE). You may also be eligible for additional discretionary incentive cash and stock opportunities. We determine starting pay thoughtfully – carefully considering the nature of the role, required skills, work location, schedule and the knowledge and experience you bring. Final compensation is guided by pay equity principles and applicable employment laws. Compensation programs are reviewed on an ongoing basis and may be adjusted over time to reflect evolving market factors, and individual, team or Company performance.

Benefits

Subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans then in effect, you may be eligible to participate in our comprehensive benefit plans – including wellbeing support, retirement and financial protection benefits, and insurance offerings (medical, dental, vision, life and disability).

U.S.-based exempt employees are eligible for Flexible Time Off (FTO), which provides paid time off without a set accrual limit, subject to manager approval, along with 11 paid company holidays each year.

Non-exempt employees, RayzeBio employees, and employees located in Puerto Rico receive 160 hours of paid vacation annually for new hires (subject to manager approval), 11 paid company holidays, and 3 optional holidays.

Depending on eligibility, employees may also have access to additional time-off benefits, including paid sick leave, up to two paid volunteer days per year, summer hours flexibility, and leaves of absence for medical, personal, parental, caregiver, bereavement, or military needs. Eligible employees also enjoy an annual Global Shutdown between Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

U.S.-based job seekers can explore full benefit offerings at https://careers.bms.com/benefits

How We Work

Where you work matters – because collaboration, innovation and patient impact happen in many settings. Our roles are structured across four work models: site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design. The model assigned to this role is based on its core responsibilities. Learn more at https://careers.bms.com/ways-of-working.

Supporting People With Disabilities

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to [e-mail]. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

Candidate Rights

BMS will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

Data Protection

We will never request payments, financial information, or social security numbers during our application or recruitment process. Learn more about protecting yourself at https://careers.bms.com/fraud-protection.

Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.

If this posting is missing required information required by local law or incorrect, contact BMS at [e-mail] the Job Title and Requisition number. Do not send application-related inquiries to this email. To check your application status, please login to your Candidate Home Account.