Principal Scientist – AI-Reasoning for Drug Discovery

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine•Hopewell Township, NJ

1d•$117,000 - $201,250•Hybrid

About The Position

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is seeking a Principal Scientist to architect an AI-reasoning platform that supports Translational Safety decision-making in drug discovery and development. The role will develop reasoning systems that scientists can access through large language models and agentic systems, using multimodal scientific data across Discovery, Preclinical, Clinical, and RWE domains. Data sources include scientific literature, omics, biomolecular knowledge, and manufacturing processes. The work is intended to transform how therapeutics are developed, compress discovery timelines, and accelerate promising treatments from hypothesis to clinical trials. The scientist will advance multimodal reasoning, agent adaptability and uncertainty, memory architecture, and motivation frameworks. The role also provides scientific leadership, mentors teams, validates AI systems against human experts and state-of-the-art methods, and may produce findings for publication in leading venues. The primary location is Spring House, Pennsylvania; other possible locations are Horsham, Pennsylvania, and New Brunswick, Raritan, or Titusville, New Jersey.

Requirements

Ph.D. in AI/ML or a related field, such as computer science, machine learning, data science, applied mathematics, or statistics, with at least 2 years of proven experience.
Deep expertise in mathematical frameworks including Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, information theory, causal inference, graph neural networks, and related methods for agentic reasoning.
Proficiency with agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, DSPy, and mem0, and deep learning platforms such as PyTorch and TensorFlow, with the ability to extend them for scientific applications.
Exceptional Python programming skills and the ability to architect scalable solutions that bridge research innovation and production deployment.
Ability to lead small teams of researchers.

Nice To Haves

Understanding of the drug discovery pipeline and familiarity with biological data types.
Strong understanding of statistics and methods for validating model performance.
Familiarity with cloud hosting solutions such as AWS and/or Azure.

Responsibilities

Develop multimodal AI systems that synthesize scientific data into actionable insights to accelerate drug discovery.
Architect agent memory systems that enable AI to retain knowledge and make context-aware decisions throughout the discovery-to-development pipeline.
Lead research in uncertainty quantification and establish standards for reliable AI-driven scientific reasoning in R&D.
Shape scientific direction by translating emerging AI/ML advances into applications and mentoring teams in computational drug discovery.
Validate scientific impact by benchmarking AI agents against human experts and state-of-the-art methods.
Lead small teams of researchers to achieve successful outcomes in their work.

Benefits

Eligibility to participate in the company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension) and 401(k) savings plan, subject to plan terms.
Eligibility to participate in the company’s long-term incentive program.
Vacation: 120 hours per calendar year, subject to applicable policies and date of hire.
Sick time: 40 hours per calendar year, with stated variations for employees residing in Colorado or Washington.
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 a child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
Bereavement Leave: 240 hours for an immediate family member and 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year.
Caregiver Leave: 80 hours in a rolling 52-week period.
Volunteer Leave: 32 hours per calendar year.
Military Spouse Time-Off: 80 hours per calendar year.