Associate Director, Discovery Biologics Data Platforms & Engineering

Merck • Boston, MA

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

Our company is a global health care leader with a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines and animal health products. The difference between potential and achievement lies in the spark that fuels innovation and inventiveness; this is the space where our company has codified its legacy for over a century. Our company's success is backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and an inspiring mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare.
We are on a quest for cures and are committed to be the world’s premier, most research-intensive biopharmaceutical company. Today, we’re doubling down on this goal to take our company's leading discovery capabilities and world-class small molecule and biologics R&D expertise to create breakthrough science that radically changes the way we approach serious diseases.
Discovery Biologics is seeking an Associate Director with experience in biologics and data science to expand our abilities to design and engineer biotherapeutics. We are building a department that directly integrates computational and wet-lab researchers with state-of-the-art automation to accelerate the discovery of novel biologics. We are a highly collaborative group of biologists, engineers, and computer scientists working at the edge of computation, disease biology, and biotherapeutics. We collaborate broadly within our Company and with academic and industry partners to accelerate the pace of biologics discovery and engineering.
We recognize that in our team is our strength and we are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Successful candidates must demonstrate inclusive behaviors in working with a group of researchers to drive our core mission.
Position Description:
This is an individual contributor role with project leadership responsibilities. The successful candidate will work side-by-side with wet-lab researchers, Discovery Biologics leadership and IT to develop Discovery Biologics end to end data capture, processing and integration ecosystem enabling data driven decision making and ML/AI applications. They will contribute to the identification/development and release of data capture, processing and integration tools and applications that enable the discovery and engineering of biologics. They will partner broadly across Discovery Biologics, Data Science, and IT to implement systems and practices that support high throughput data capture, integration, and the generation of predictive models. As part of project teams, they will provide capabilities to generate multidimensional data to enable teams to drive pipeline programs forward. As part of technology development teams, they will pursue novel research that enhances our ability to collect and learn from large datasets. They will mentor, coach, and train fellow researchers. The successful candidate will join a group of innovative researchers who are driving the next revolution in biologics discovery and engineering.

Requirements

• PhD in Computational Biology, Biostatistics, Biochemistry, Computer Science, Biology, Engineering/Bioengineering, Structural Biology, Biophysics, Chemistry or related STEM discipline with demonstrated expertise in biologics and data science and 4+ years of industry experience
• MS and 8+ years or
• BS +12 years of experience
• Fluency in at least one modern programming language such as Python, Java or similar; fluency in using version control systems (Git) and branching strategies.
• Strong expertise in data science and data engineering workflow and best practices for life science applications
• Experience working with relational database (SQL) and non-relational database, and designing data models
• Experience in designing, implementing, and maintaining modern data architecture, using the state-of-the-art tools for large scale data applications, such as Airflow, DBT, Kafka, Debezium, Docker, Kubernetes, Datadog
• Extensive experience as a developer using any major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, Azure)
• Experience in working with microservices and API development
• Experience building visualizations using tools such as Spotfire, JMP, Power BI
• Ability to teach biologists and biochemists the fundamentals of data science
• Demonstrated ability to succeed in a collaborative, multidisciplinary team environment
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Champion for inclusive culture
• Mentor and coach group members to complement and strengthen their team

Nice To Haves

• Full stack developer experience
• Experience with Scientific Data Life Cycle (SDLC) documentation
• Experience with protein engineering or the discovery and development of biologics
• Experience with multiple types of protein structure and sequence representations, featurization, and embeddings
• Experience with protein modeling software (e.g. AlphaFold, Rosetta, TrRosetta, MOE, GROMACs, or similar)
• Experience in DevOps, DataOps, and ML Engineering

Responsibilities

• Develop strong partnership with our company's IT and Discovery Biologics (DB) to act as key interface in IT/DB relationships
• Perform requirement gathering, development, sprint reviews, UAT, release and trainings for new data capture and processing solutions and capabilities
• Collaborate across groups to systematize and automate the process of capturing raw instrument data and preparing it for storage and analysis Ensure developed solutions are aligned within Discovery Biologics to facilitate data reusability and confidence
• Collaborating with our company IT on SAS applications evaluations, configuration, onboarding and release
• Develop custom data processing and visualizations workflows that enable project teams to impact protein engineering designs and allow teams to rapidly make program decisions from real-time data
• Develop AI Agents to facilitate access to key information for lab scientists and leadership
• Develop data visualizations to enable data driven decision making for scientists and their leadership
• Provide technical expertise and leadership for data science working groups and teams
• Author and contribute to presentations, publications, and patents
• Foster a high-performance culture of collaboration, engagement, self-accountability and inclusion

Benefits

• The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.
• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree