Associate Director, AI for Oncology Clinical Development

AstraZeneca•Cambridge, MA

7d•$144,000 - $216,000

About The Position

The AI for Clinical Development team at AstraZeneca is reimagining clinical drug development, aiming to bring safe and efficacious treatments to patients faster, more cost-effectively, and with reduced patient burden. The Associate Director will serve as a technical lead, applying AI alongside computational, statistical, and machine learning tools to address high-priority clinical development questions across the enterprise. The role involves collaboration across Oncology areas including hematology, cell therapy, antibody-drug conjugates, small molecules, and biologics. The successful candidate will help develop and apply methods that use data, models, and learnings across cancer biology and drug modalities to advance the late-stage drug pipeline and the team’s objectives.

Requirements

Master’s degree in a quantitative discipline such as computer science, bioinformatics, computational biology, mathematics, physics, biophysics, computational neuroscience, or biostatistics.
At least 2 years of work experience outside academic research with measurable impact, such as models delivered, patents, SaMD filings, first-author publications, open-source projects, or standards-body participation.
Exceptional software development and coding skills, leveraging frontier coding agent frameworks.
Deep understanding of machine learning fundamentals, with domain expertise in one or more of the following: training and tuning foundation models; Bayesian inference; temporal modeling; multimodal integration and modeling; model calibration and domain adaptation; data-centric AI and dataset acquisition, creation, and curation for training, post-training, benchmarking, or evaluations; model and data evaluation and benchmarking; model interpretability; or model post-training and alignment.

Nice To Haves

Advanced education, such as a PhD.
Deep, up-to-date knowledge of ML literature and connections with the ML community, such as conference publications, presentations, or collaborations.
Experience, knowledge, or understanding of one or more fields of biology.
Experience working with biological data, including molecular data (such as DNA, RNA, or protein), imaging (such as radiology or microscopy), or clinical text (such as EHRs or clinical notes).
Experience in drug development, including clinical trial design, biomarker discovery, companion diagnostics, dosing, safety, endpoints, or regulatory work.
Experience in a matrixed global organization spanning multiple sites and therapy areas.
Keeping up to date with AI research and tools, proactively trying those of interest, and discerning hype from genuine added value.
Knowledge of computing hardware.

Responsibilities

Contribute to the AI strategy and roadmap for Oncology early- and late-phase clinical development.
Serve as a key technical lead and contributor in matrixed teams delivering complex, high-stakes AI projects.
Evaluate and develop cutting-edge AI methods in areas such as problem definition, data considerations, governance, algorithm development, validation, and adoption.
Partner with clinical development, biometrics, regulatory, and study teams to develop and validate AI solutions for clinical study design, execution, strategy, and decision-making.
Establish and maintain external collaborations with academic institutions, technology partners, and industry consortia to access novel capabilities and advance the AI roadmap.
Represent AstraZeneca at scientific conferences, standards bodies, and peer-reviewed venues, and contribute first- or last-author publications in leading ML and clinical AI journals.
Mentor and support peers within the team.