Principal Scientist, Scientific Workflows & Agentic Cheminformatics

6084-Janssen Research & Development, LLC Legal Entity; Spring House (PA); On-site; USD 117,000 - 201,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Life insurance

Short- and long-term disability

Group legal insurance

Vacation up to 120 hours per year

Floating holidays up to 13 days per y

Job summary

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine seeks a Principal Scientist to lead the design, prototyping, and validation of agent-enabled discovery workflows. You will partner with data science and platform engineering to advance AI-enabled capabilities across discovery programs.

You will shape a portfolio of agentic prototypes, set priorities, and ensure scientific rigor and adoption in real-world settings. This role requires global collaboration and travel up to 10%.

Qualifications

• PhD or equivalent in cheminformatics, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, or related discipline.
• Deep understanding of compound design and predictive models used in drug discovery.
• Strong Python programming and automated workflow development.
• Experience with AI-assisted development and large language models.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 10%.

Responsibilities

• Lead design, prototyping, and validation of agent-enabled discovery workflows.
• Establish scientific evidence, adoption models, and partnerships across programs.
• Define reusable approaches translating complex questions into workflows.
• Develop datasets, reference scenarios, and success criteria for evaluation.
• Evaluate agent behavior for scientific validity and robustness.
• Mentor scientists and engineers; drive cross-functional alignment.
• Collaborate with data science and platform engineering on AI architecture and deployment.
• Translate requirements into reusable capabilities aligned with shared architectures.

Skills

Python programming

Workflow orchestration

AI-assisted development

Model integration

Scientific leadership

Cross-disciplinary collaboration

Mentoring

Travel availability

Education

PhD or equivalent in cheminformatics/related field

Job description

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com.

Job Function

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function

Data Science

Job Category

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America; Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America; Turnhout, Antwerp, Belgium

Job Description

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow. Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way. Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is recruiting for a Principal Scientist, Scientific Workflows & Agentic Cheminformatics to join our In Silico Drug Discovery team. This position will be located in either Spring House, PA; or Cambridge, MA and may require some travel as needed (no remote option). Consideration may be given for candidates located in Beerse, Belgium. Please note that this role is available across multiple countries and may be posted under different requisition numbers to comply with local requirements. While you are welcome to apply to any or all of the postings, we recommend focusing on the specific country(s) that align with your preferred location(s): USA - Requisition Number: R-102947 Belgium - Requisition Number: R-104669

Mission

The Principal Scientist will lead the identification, scientific design, prototyping, and validation of agent-enabled workflows that address high-value discovery questions across multiple use cases or discovery areas. This individual will also establish the scientific evidence, adoption model, and partnerships needed to advance promising concepts into broadly used capabilities.

Core Responsibilities

• Build trusted partnerships with medicinal chemists, CADD scientists, biologists, DMPK scientists, data scientists, and scientific leaders to understand decision workflows and identify opportunities with impact across projects or discovery areas.
• Shape and prioritize a portfolio of scientific questions and decision points where agentic approaches can bring together data, models, and expert knowledge to improve the quality or speed of discovery.
• Define robust and reusable approaches for translating complex scientific questions into workflows that make evidence, assumptions, decisions, and points requiring expert judgment explicit.
• Design scientifically meaningful use cases, reference datasets, and success criteria that enable rigorous evaluation.
• Evaluate agent behavior and outputs for scientific validity, reproducibility, uncertainty, appropriate tool use, robustness across scenarios, and relevance to discovery decisions.
• Capture the scientific insights gained from early applications and use them to define which approaches merit further development and broader adoption.
• Develop and test agentic prototypes in realistic discovery settings, combining scientific expertise with relevant data, predictive models, computational or laboratory methods, and tools that agents can select and coordinate to address a scientific objective.
• Provide scientific and technical leadership across a portfolio of agentic prototypes, set priorities and success measures, guide trade‑off decisions, and ensure that the work addresses meaningful discovery needs and delivers measurable value.
• Drive broader adoption of agentic capabilities by integrating them into familiar scientific environments, establishing effective patterns for human-agent collaboration, and building communities of practice across discovery functions.
• Lead the scientific design, prototyping, and validation of agent-enabled discovery workflows, and partner with data science and platform engineering teams from an early stage on the underlying AI architecture, production implementation, security, and sustained operation.
• Translate scientific requirements and evidence into reusable capabilities that align with shared architectures and can be deployed across discovery programs.

Required Skills

• PhD or equivalent substantial experience in cheminformatics, computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, chemical biology, or a related discipline, with recognized depth of scientific expertise relevant to drug discovery.
• Deep understanding of compound design, predictive models, and discovery decision‑making, with the ability to connect scientific needs and opportunities across disciplines or programs.
• Strong Python programming skills and experience developing automated workflows, pipelines, or scientific applications to explore scientific questions and create practical proof‑of‑concept solutions.
• Familiarity with workflow orchestration and sound software development practices, including version control, testing, and continuous integration and delivery.
• Hands‑on experience using AI‑assisted development approaches to build reliable scientific software or automated workflows, with practical experience applying large language models and designing effective interactions between models, tools, and human experts.
• Demonstrated ability to define scientific direction in ambiguous areas, translate emerging needs into a coherent capability agenda, and influence stakeholders across scientific, data science, and technology organizations.
• Track record of scientific leadership, cross‑disciplinary collaboration, and translating promising ideas into approaches that influence discovery strategy and outcomes beyond a single project.
• Ability to mentor scientists and engineers, raise scientific and technical standards, and build alignment and capability across a matrixed organization.
• Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 10% of the time.

Preferred Skills

Experience designing and evaluating end‑to‑end agent-enabled scientific workflows or multi‑agent solutions is preferred. Strong knowledge of and hands‑on experience with public and commercial bioactivity and chemogenomics databases. Demonstrated track record of partnering with platform engineering teams to develop production‑ready solutions.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. If you are under 18 years of age, you (the candidate) may need to obtain the necessary working papers or other documentation required by state law to start the assignment, as well as get a parent’s consent for the background check.

Base Pay

The anticipated base pay range for this position is $117,000 to $201,250. The Company maintains highly competitive, performance-based compensation programs. Under current guidelines, this position is eligible for an annual performance bonus in accordance with the terms of the applicable plan. The annual performance bonus is a cash bonus intended to provide an incentive to achieve annual targeted results by rewarding for individual and the corporation’s performance over a calendar/performance year. Bonuses are awarded at the Company’s discretion on an individual basis. Employees and/or eligible dependents may be eligible to participate in the following company-sponsored employee benefit programs: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, business accident insurance, and group legal insurance.

Employee Benefits

• Medical
• Dental
• Vision
• Life insurance
• Short- and long-term disability
• Business accident insurance
• Group legal insurance

Time Off Benefits

• Vacation - up to 120 hours per calendar year
• Sick time - up to 40 hours per calendar year
• Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays - up to 13 days per calendar year of work, personal and family time - up to 40 hours

Additional information can be found through the link below. https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants’ needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, external applicants please contact us via https://www.jnj.com/contact-us/careers, internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.