Principal Data Engineer, Biologics Discovery

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 Engineering

Job Category:

Scientific/Technology

All Job Posting Locations:

Raritan, New Jersey, United States of America, Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America, Titusville, New Jersey, United States of America

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

About the opportunity

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is seeking a Principal Data Engineer dedicated to our Biologics Discovery organization. This is a high-leverage role responsible for shaping how discovery data is structured, connected, and made AI-ready across Biologics Discovery. The role serves as the bridge between scientific workflows, data consumers, and technology partners, ensuring that discovery data products support scientific research, analytics, machine learning, and agentic workflows.

This position will be based at one of our office locations in either Spring House, PA (strongly preferred), Titusville, NJ, or Raritan, NJ. (No remote option.)

Why this role matters:
High-quality, well-governed scientific data is foundational to our vision for AI-enabled biologics discovery. This role provides senior technical leadership within Biologics Discovery, translating scientific needs into data products, scientific data models, and requirements, and working with enterprise data and technology partners to ensure discovery data is trusted, connected, and AI-ready as the broader ecosystem evolves.

Position Summary

As a Principal Data Engineer, you will lead the design of discovery data products, scientific data models (schemas, entities, and relationships), and integration requirements that enable discovery data to be acquired, connected, harmonized, and delivered across the Biologics Discovery ecosystem. You will work closely with scientists and AI/ML teams to translate their needs into durable, reusable, and AI-ready data assets.
 

Working in close partnership with enterprise Data Strategy & Products and Technology teams, you will ensure discovery data needs are represented in enterprise standards and that those standards are effectively applied within Biologics Discovery. You will help shape the future-state discovery data ecosystem while delivering near-term value through trusted data products, harmonized data, and metadata practices that support long-term interoperability and reuse.
 

Key Responsibilities

Discovery Data Products & Integration

• Design and deliver AI-ready discovery data products that support ML, AI, and insight generation across Biologics Discovery, applying agile delivery practices to respond to evolving scientific needs.
• Define and lead the delivery of scalable integration requirements, transformation patterns, and data schemas that support discovery data acquisition, harmonization, and downstream analytics, working with scientific, data, and technology stakeholders to enable reliable data exchange across systems.
• Translate scientific and analytical requirements from discovery teams into data product specifications, data contracts, acceptance criteria, and delivery requirements, in partnership with scientists, AI/ML teams, and technology partners.
• Define access and data consumption patterns that enable analytics, modeling, and agentic AI workflows, aligned with industry data standards and frameworks.
• Catalog discovery instruments, data types, and data sources to inform data product prioritization and sustainable integration approaches.

Data Stewardship & Organizational Impact

• Establish, champion, and drive adoption of standards and best practices for discovery data products, including data quality, provenance, lineage, reproducibility, metadata, and documentation.
• Partner with ontology, data architecture, platform, and AI teams to ensure discovery data products are connected, discoverable, and suitable for advanced analytics, ML, and agentic AI applications.
• Apply FAIR data principles, so data products are reusable, scalable, and interoperable.
• Serve as a thought leader in scientific data architecture, harmonization, and AI-ready data practices across the organization.

Qualifications:

Required

• Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or a related computational field.
• 8+ years (Bachelor's), 5+ years (Master's), or 3+ years (Ph.D.) of experience designing and delivering data products, data models, and analytics-ready datasets within pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or life sciences organizations.
• Deep proficiency in Python and SQL, with hands-on experience designing and implementing reusable and scalable data assets on cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake, AWS, Azure, BigQuery) to support analytics, machine learning, and AI-driven workflows.
• Experience applying FAIR data principles, metadata management, controlled vocabularies, data lineage, and provenance practices in scientific data environments.
• Demonstrated technical leadership through architecture reviews, mentorship, code reviews, or leadership of complex technical initiatives.
• Proven ability to lead complex cross-functional technical initiatives and establish data standards across multiple stakeholder groups.
• Strong communication and the seniority to represent the team credibly in architecture, data, and strategy forums.

Preferred

• Prior technical mentorship or leadership responsibilities.
• Experience with ontologies, semantic technologies, knowledge graphs, or ontology-driven data architectures.
• Experience in biologics discovery, high-throughput experimentation, or external partner (CRO/CDMO) data integration.
• Experience with modern software and data engineering practices, including automated testing, CI/CD, containers, orchestration, and monitoring.

Why This Role Is Unique

This is a rare opportunity to shape how scientific data powers modern biologics discovery. You will transform complex experimental data into durable, governed, AI-ready data products, and bring the scientific perspective that shapes how enterprise data architectures, standards, and integration patterns are applied to discovery.

Ideal Candidate Profile

The ideal candidate is a technical leader and hands-on builder in a pharma or biotech organization. They combine strong data engineering expertise with the ability to influence across organizational boundaries. They can design scalable scientific data products, define data schemas, champion data standards, navigate complex stakeholder interactions, deliver high-impact solutions, and elevate the capabilities of technical teams through mentorship and example.

This position will be based at one of our office locations in either Spring House, PA (strongly preferred), Titusville, NJ, or Raritan, NJ. (No remote option.)

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.
 

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.

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.

Employees may be eligible to participate in the Company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).

Employees are eligible for the following 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 per calendar year
Additional information can be found through the link below. https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits

The compensation and benefits information set forth in this posting applies to candidates hired in the United States. Candidates hired outside the United States will be eligible for compensation and benefits in accordance with their local market.

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Required Skills:

 

 

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics, Agility Jumps, Coaching, Critical Thinking, Data Engineering, Data Governance, Data Modeling, Data Privacy Standards, Data Science, Digital Fluency, Execution Focus, Hybrid Clouds, Organizing, Presentation Design, Technical Development, Technical Writing, Technologically Savvy