Principal Scientist, AI & Autonomous Discovery Systems

About the role

Johnson & Johnson is seeking a Principal Scientist to lead AI‑enabled autonomous discovery platforms that accelerate drug development. The position is based in Spring House, PA and focuses on building intelligent Design‑Make‑Test‑Learn ecosystems.

Key responsibilities

• Design and implement AI‑driven discovery workflows that integrate target identification, molecular prediction, experiment planning and data interpretation.
• Define long‑term technical vision and multi‑agent architecture for autonomous laboratory orchestration.
• Connect AI models, data platforms, robotics, cloud services and laboratory instruments into coherent, continuously learning workflows.
• Collaborate with external agentic system providers to create intelligent scientific systems for hypothesis generation and active learning.
• Establish standards for AI governance, safety, observability, reliability and data security.

Required profile

• Ph.D. in a quantitative discipline such as Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, Computational Biology or related field.
• At least 3 years of post‑doctoral experience applying advanced AI/ML in pharmaceutical or biotech research.
• Proven ability to architect enterprise‑scale AI platforms and production‑grade scientific software.
• Experience partnering with drug discovery scientists and laboratory automation teams.

Required skills

• Python programming.
• Deep learning frameworks: PyTorch, TensorFlow, JAX.
• Agentic AI, generative AI, foundation models, multimodal AI.
• MLOps/LLMOps, cloud computing, APIs and distributed systems.
• Laboratory automation, robotics integration, LIMS/ELN systems.