AI Engineer

100 Eli Lilly and Company; South San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 141,000 - 253,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Pension

Vacation benefits

Disability & life insurance

Job summary

Lilly, in partnership with NVIDIA, seeks an AI Engineer to turn advanced AI models into practical tools for drug discovery in a hybrid Silicon Valley hub. You will build, train, evaluate, and deploy AI systems in close collaboration with AI Scientists, ML Ops, and data engineers.

The role emphasizes full-stack capabilities, distributed training on multi-GPU clusters, and production-grade model serving with modern frameworks. Competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits are offered.

Qualifications

• Master's degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 4+ years hands-on engineering experience building machine learning systems, taking models from research to production.
• Strong Python, ML stack, and software engineering discipline.

Responsibilities

• Turn advanced AI models into reliable tools to support drug discovery.
• Build, train, evaluate, and deploy AI systems with AI Scientists and ML Ops Engineers.
• Collaborate with data, model, service, and interface teams to deliver scalable AI solutions.

Skills

Python

PyTorch

JAX

Distributed training

React

NumPy/SciPy

Pandas

CUDA

Docker/Kubernetes

Cloud platforms

Education

Master's degree in CS/ML

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

Ray

Slurm

Job description

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work-but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

Where AI Meets Medicine: Build the Future of Drug Discovery in the Heart of Silicon Valley! Making medicine that’s never been made means doing what’s never been done. If you’re an engineer, scientist, or builder who thrives on problems no one has solved before, this is your invitation; we want you on the team. We are ready to challenge the status quo and push medicine forward, all in the name of health. Are you up for the challenge? If so, join us!

About the Lilly and NVIDIA Partnership

Lilly and NVIDIA are launching a new AI co-innovation lab in the heart of Silicon Valley - an up-to-$1 billion, multi-year commitment to solve drug discovery’s toughest challenges. The lab brings Lilly scientists, technologists, chemists and biologists together with NVIDIA engineers under one roof. Together, we are building purpose-built foundation and frontier AI models trained on Lilly data at scale, tightening the feedback loop between automated wet labs and computational dry labs, designing the next generation of medicines for millions of patients across the globe.

What You’ll Be Doing

As an AI Engineer, you will turn advanced AI models into reliable tools that support drug discovery. You will build, train, evaluate, and deploy AI systems, working closely with AI Scientists to shape model design and technical decisions. This is a hands-on role with opportunities to contribute to both engineering and scientific innovation. You'll collaborate with AI Scientists, ML Ops Engineers, Data Engineers, and NVIDIA experts to develop cutting-edge AI solutions.

How You’ll Succeed

AI and Automation Execution: Develop and apply innovative AI techniques to solve complex business challenges, creating tailored solutions that drive strategic value and transform clinical research processes that support AI scientists. Full Stack Development: Build and implement AI-driven models and applications across the full stack, from backend services to frontend interfaces. System Architecture and Design: Design and uphold resilient system architectures to guarantee optimal performance, scalability, and security across all platforms. Handle large scale model development. Cross-Disciplinary and Organization Collaboration: Effectively engage with colleagues to gather innovative ideas and insights, fostering a collaborative environment that inspires and motivates team members to innovate and explore creative solutions in AI development. Ethics and Compliance in Development: Adhere to ethical guidelines in AI usage and data handling, ensuring compliance with all relevant regulations and maintaining the highest standards of data privacy and security. Elevate engineering excellence through architecture reviews, code quality leadership, and mentorship, while safeguarding Lilly's proprietary data, models, and intellectual property.

What You Should Bring

Advanced Python with production experience in PyTorch or JAX, and a track record of taking machine learning models from research code to working systems. Hands-on distributed training on multi‑GPU, multi‑node infrastructure (DDP, FSDP, DeepSpeed, or Megatron), with GPU performance profiling and optimization. Experience optimizing and serving models for inference (Triton, vLLM, or TensorRT-LLM) with containerization and scheduling (Docker, Kubernetes, Ray, or Slurm). Experience building evaluation and benchmarking for models — including designing the tests that reveal where a model fails, not only where it succeeds. Full stack capability — a backend language, front‑end familiarity (JavaScript with a framework such as React), and API design — enough to build the interfaces through which scientists actually use a model. Comfort with the scientific Python stack (NumPy, SciPy, Pandas); C++ or CUDA for performance‑critical work is a strong plus. Experience with cloud AI/ML platforms (AWS, Azure, or GCP) alongside on‑premises GPU clusters. Excellent problem‑solving skills and the ability to navigate ambiguity in a highly technical environment. Strong written and verbal communication and demonstrated ability to partner well with research scientists. Experience with distributed training or large‑scale model deployment on GPU infrastructure. Prior experience working across the full stack of an AI application — data, model, service, and interface.

Your Basic Qualifications

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical field. 4+ years of hands‑on engineering experience building machine learning systems, including taking models from research or prototype into real working use.

Location & Work Flexibility

This role is based at our Silicon Valley Hub. We offer a flexible hybrid work model, with three days onsite and two days working remotely each week, supporting both collaboration and work‑life balance.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia (AMECA), Black Employees at Lilly (BE@Lilly), Chinese Culture Network (CCN), EnAble, Evolve, Lilly Indian Network (LIN), Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), Pride (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN) and Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL).

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location. The anticipated wage for this position is $141,000 - $253,000 Full‑time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance).

In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company‑sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well‑being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).

Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

#WeAreLilly At Lilly we strive to ensure our employees are part of a team that cares about them and our shared purpose of making life better for those around the world. How do we do this? We continue to look for ways to include, innovate, accelerate and deliver while maintaining integrity, excellence and respect for people. We hope that you seek to join us on our journey as we create medicine and deliver improved outcomes for patients across the globe! #WeAreLilly