Director of Cheminformatics & Data Science Innovation

Merck; Boston (MA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Merck in Boston seeks a Director of Cheminformatics to lead a multi‑site team advancing modeling and informatics in drug discovery. You will drive ML-enabled workflows, scalable data architectures, and AI innovations across programs, partnering with chemistry, biology, and IT stakeholders.

The role emphasizes talent development, inclusion, and collaboration to embed cheminformatics into the DMTA cycle and accelerate decision‑making across discovery.

Qualifications

• PhD and 7+ years of professional experience applying computational and data science to interdisciplinary drug discovery problems.
• 2+ years of managerial experience with inclusive leadership.
• Experience designing modern computational workflows, cloud-based systems, and scalable platforms.
• Strong understanding of cheminformatics, data analytics, and data engineering in drug discovery contexts.

Responsibilities

• Sets vision and strategy for cheminformatics capabilities and platforms that accelerate discovery.
• Leads a multi-site team spanning data engineering, analytics, and scientific software.
• Develops talent and fosters an inclusive, high-performing culture.
• Translates scientific questions into scalable data architectures and workflows.
• Drives next‑gen cheminformatics workflows with ML, knowledge graphs, and AI approaches.
• Ensures capabilities are deployed in collaboration with project teams and modeling partners.
• Maintains strong partnerships with IT to support sustainable platforms.

Skills

AI

Cheminformatics

Chemistry

Cloud Computing

Computational Chemistry

Computer A

Education

BS, MS or PhD in cheminformatics, bioinformatics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry, physics, statistics, computational chemistry, computational biology, data science, AI/ML, computer science, math, pharmaceutical sciences, engineering, or a related STEM field

Tools

MLOps

DataOps

Job description

Merck in Boston seeks a Director of Cheminformatics to lead a multi‑site team advancing modeling and informatics in drug discovery. You will drive ML-enabled workflows, scalable data architectures, and AI innovations across programs, partnering with chemistry, biology, and IT stakeholders.

The role emphasizes talent development, inclusion, and collaboration to embed cheminformatics into the DMTA cycle and accelerate decision‑making across discovery.