Principal Scientist - Molecular Informatics & Computational Platforms

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

As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world.  We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual.  At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

Job Function:

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function:

Data Science

Job Category:

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations:

San Diego, California, United States of America

Job Description:

About Innovative Medicine

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

We are reimagining drug discovery through the lens of agentic AI—turning scientific expertise into composable, intelligent workflows that accelerate every stage of the DMTA cycle. We are seeking a highly skilled and innovative Principal Scientist to help lead this transformation by developing agentic-AI capabilities and computational platforms for In Silico Discovery (ISD).

The successful candidate will design and help implement computational platforms that serve as the foundation for agentic workflows— bridging end-user scientists and platform engineering teams. They will help define how scientists interact with AI-driven tools, set best practices for agentic development, and upskill scientists across the department. This role collaborates closely with project and platform engineering teams to turn ISD's scientific tools into a trusted agentic AI discovery engine.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as a key agentic-AI enablement leader for ISD: define best practices and help shape the department's agentic strategy.

• Expose computational science capabilities as agent-callable services and help build specialized domain agents, in partnership with platform engineering and portfolio teams.

• Lead design and development of scientific platforms and workflows—including virtual screening, active-learning triage, and ADMET-ML scoring—as reusable, agent-ready components for hit identification and compound optimization.

• Advance small molecule informatics across the DMTA cycle, guiding bench scientists in analysis and decision-making.

• Upskill ISD scientists in agentic-AI tools, prompt engineering, and AI-augmented research practices.

Required Qualifications

• PhD in Cheminformatics, Computational Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, or a related field.

• Minimum of 3 years of industry experience with a proven track record of delivering end-to-end solutions from conceptualization to implementation.

• Hands-on experience with LLM-based tools for scientific workflows (e.g., Claude Code), including skill/prompt engineering and MCP or RAG/knowledge-base integration.

• Deep expertise in cheminformatics software (e.g., KNIME, OpenEye, RDKit) and programming languages (e.g., Python, R), including familiarity with scientific computing and ML libraries (e.g., pandas, scikit-learn, PyTorch).

• Experience with SQL/Snowflake and modeling chemistry data (structures, assay and screening data). Comfort with cloud-native and containerized deployment environments.

• Experience working in cross-functional teams and translating ideas from bench scientists to informatics solutions, with excellent problem-solving and communication skills.

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.  

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.

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Required Skills:

 

 

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics, Coaching, Critical Thinking, Data Analysis, Data Privacy Standards, Data Quality, Data Reporting, Data Savvy, Data Science, Data Visualization, Digital Fluency, Econometric Models, Organizing, Process Improvements, Strategic Thinking, Technical Credibility, Workflow Analysis

 

 

The anticipated base pay range for this position is :

$117,000.00 - $201,250.00

Additional Description for Pay Transparency:

Subject to the terms of their respective plans, employees are eligible to participate in the Company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).

This position is eligible to participate in the Company’s long-term incentive program.

Subject to the terms of their respective policies and date of hire, employees are eligible for the following time off benefits:

Vacation –120 hours per calendar year

Sick time - 40 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Colorado –48 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Washington –56 hours per calendar year

Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays –13 days per calendar year

Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year

Parental Leave – 480 hours within one year of the birth/adoption/foster care of a child

Bereavement Leave – 240 hours for an immediate family member: 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year

Caregiver Leave – 80 hours in a 52-week rolling period10 days

Volunteer Leave – 32 hours per calendar year

Military Spouse Time-Off – 80 hours per calendar year

For additional general information on Company benefits, please go to: - https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits