Principal Data Scientist

AbbVie; Illinois; On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Paid time off

Medical/dental/vision insurance

401(k) plan

Long-term incentive programs

Job summary

AbbVie in the United States is seeking a Principal Data Scientist to lead a portfolio of advanced analytics capabilities across customer understanding, engagement planning, decision support, and measurement. You will translate business goals into scalable AI/ML solutions and guide cross-functional teams across BTS, Digital Lab, engineering, and platform groups.

The role emphasizes productionizing AI/ML solutions, ensuring code quality, reproducibility, and robust validation, while staying

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in statistics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, or quantitative field.
• 8+ years of experience in data science, ML, with production-quality models.
• 5+ years of experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, or life sciences commercial analytics.
• 4+ years in omnichannel analytics, journey analysis, engagement measurement.
• 4+ years measuring commercial effectiveness with A/B testing and quasi-experimental techniques.
• Strong Python and/or R and SQL; experience with pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, PySpark.
• Hands-on experience with PyTorch or TensorFlow for sequential/recommendation use cases.

Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio of advanced analytics capabilities across customer understanding, engagement planning, decision support, and measurement.
• Translate product requirements and business goals into scalable technical solutions.
• Lead the design and development of predictive and inferential models to generate actionable insights.
• Design analytics approaches to evaluate cross-channel engagement patterns and dynamics.
• Own measurement methodologies to assess effectiveness and impact.
• Partner with BTS, Digital Lab, engineering to build production-ready analytics and AI/ML solutions.
• Establish best practices in model development, documentation, reproducibility, and version control.
• Synthesize findings into clear recommendations for non-technical stakeholders.
• Productionalize AI/ML solutions including deployment and monitoring.
• Stay current with advances in ML and pharma analytics.

Skills

Machine learning

Statistical modeling

Causal inference

Python

SQL

Deep learning

Communication

Cross-functional collaboration

Productionizing AI/ML

Education

Bachelor’s degree in statistics, mathematics, computer science, engineering, or other quantitative discipline

Master’s or PhD in a quantitative field strongly preferred

Tools

PyTorch

TensorFlow

Azure ML / Databricks / MLflow

Job description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn,Facebook,Instagram,XandYouTube.

The Analytics and Performance Excellence (APEX) function supports AbbVie's US Commercial organization and is comprised of highly regarded researchers, analysts, data scientists and strategists who are committed to being best-in-class within the biopharmaceutical industry. We serve as a strategic in-house counsel, ensuring that all decisions leverage the key insights that we develop. We continue to build new capabilities and skill sets, encouraging our team members to pull up a chair, be themselves, be creative, speak their minds, and do good work. We are a passionate, diverse, flexible, and inclusive organization with a culture that supports the best ideas, wherever they originate. We are smart, fun, quirky, and innovative - and we'd love for you to join us.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead a portfolio of advanced analytics capabilities across customer understanding, engagement planning, decision support, and measurement.


• Translate product requirements and business goals into scalable technical solutions, including model design, feature engineering, validation, and deployment.


• Lead the design and development of predictive and inferential models that generate actionable insights on customer behavior, engagement opportunities, and drivers of business performance using complex, multi-source data.


• Design analytics approaches that evaluate cross-channel engagement patterns, interaction effects, and temporal dynamics to inform coordinated customer strategies.


• Own measurement methodologies to measure effectiveness, incrementality, and business impact using experimental and observational methods.


• Partner with BTS, Digital Lab, engineering, and platform teams to build scalable, production-ready analytics and AI/ML solutions.


• Establish best practices in model development, including code quality, documentation, reproducibility, peer review, version control, and methodological rigor.


• Synthesize complex technical findings into clear, actionable insights and recommendations for non-technical stakeholders


• Partner with engineering and platform teams to productionalize AI/ML solutions, including deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management.


• Stay current with advances in applied machine learning, causal inference, and pharmaceutical analytics, proactively identifying and piloting emerging methods that could enhance the existing and new capabilities.

Supervisory / Management Responsibilities

This role does not carry formal direct report responsibilities at this level but is expected to provide technical mentorship and hands-on guidance to junior and mid-level data scientists supporting the advanced analytics team. The Principal Data Scientist may lead technical workstreams with external analytics vendors and partners, including oversight of deliverable quality and methodology validation.

Key Competencies

• Deep expertise in machine learning, statistical modeling, and causal inference, with a track record of delivering production-quality analytics solutions.


• Strong ability to lead technical execution with Product Owners and cross-functional teams.


• Ability to translate ambiguous business problems into well-scoped technical solutions with clear methods and success metrics.


• Hands-on knowledge of the full data science lifecycle, from exploration and feature engineering to deployment and monitoring.


• Strong software engineering discipline, including testing, documentation, reproducibility, and version control.


• Deep familiarity with pharmaceutical data ecosystems, including HCP, patient, and engagement data.


• Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to non-technical audiences.


• Strong understanding of AI engineering principles, including deployment, monitoring, and enterprise integration.


• Ability to work across data science, engineering, and platform teams to operationalize solutions at scale.

• Bachelor’s Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, or another quantitative discipline required; Master’s or PhD in a quantitative field strongly preferred.


• 8+ years of experience in data science, machine learning, or advanced analytics, with delivery of production-quality models and solutions.


• 5+ years of experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare, or life sciences commercial analytics is highly preferred.


• 4+ years of experience in omnichannel analytics, including journey analysis, touchpoint measurement, engagement optimization, or next-best-action modeling.


• 4+ years of experience measuring commercial effectiveness and business impact using methods such as promotional response analysis, closed-loop measurement, A/B testing, and quasi-experimental techniques.


• Strong proficiency in Python and/or R and strong SQL skills; hands-on Python experience with pandas, NumPy, scikit-learn, and PySpark for data transformation, feature engineering, model development, and scalable workflows.


• Hands-on experience with deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow for sequential, temporal, or recommendation use cases.


• Experience working with product owners, business stakeholders, and cross-functional teams to translate requirements into technical solutions.


• Experience productionizing AI/ML solutions in cloud environments, including deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management.

Preferred Experience

• Experience with advanced ML and optimization methods, including reinforcement learning, multi-armed bandits, transformers, and other deep learning approaches for sequential, recommendation, or next-best-action use cases.


• Familiarity with pharmaceutical data sources such as IQVIA, Symphony Health, APLD, or similar Rx, claims, and engagement datasets.


• Experience working in agile product development environments.


• Exposure to cloud ML platforms and MLOps tools such as Azure ML, Databricks, and MLflow.


• Experience presenting analytical methods and findings to senior or executive audiences.


• Exposure to modern AI engineering approaches, including LLM-based workflows, orchestration frameworks, or agentic AI patterns.


• Experience integrating AI/ML solutions using APIs, pipelines, or orchestration tools

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state orlocal law:

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Companybelieves ingood faith it will pay for this role at the timeof this posting based on the job grade for this position.Individualcompensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, andwemayultimatelypaymore or less than the posted range. This range may bemodifiedin thefuture.


• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick),medical/dental/visioninsurance and 401(k) to eligibleemployees.


• This job is eligible toparticipatein our long-term incentiveprograms.

Note: No amount of payis considered to bewages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, anddeterminable.The amount and availability of any bonus,commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form ofcompensation and benefitsthat are allocable to a particular employeeremainsin the Company's sole andabsolutediscretion unless and until paid andmay bemodifiedat the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent withapplicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

US & Puerto Rico only - to learn more, visit https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/equal-employment-opportunity-employer.html

US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:

https://www.abbvie.com/join-us/reasonable-accommodations.html