Senior Principal AI Research Engineer

Pfizer • Bothell, WA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Pfizer is building an AI-native operating model for drug discovery in which small, capable teams combine human expertise with AI to transform how scientific and technical work is organized and performed. The Senior Principal AI Research Engineer will build machine learning systems that turn innovative models into secure, reliable, and scalable capabilities for scientists across Pfizer. The role has significant technical ownership and focuses on delivering end-to-end systems that enable scientific discovery across discovery, development, and translational science.

The engineer will own a subsystem, platform capability, or workflow; make architecture and design decisions; and lead complex technical delivery from concept through production and operational support. The work spans areas such as multimodal biomedical AI, intelligent agents, data and retrieval pipelines, evaluation frameworks, knowledge systems, inference services, and human-in-the-loop workflows. The engineer will partner with AI scientists, computational biologists, data engineers, and platform teams to turn research prototypes into reusable, maintainable production systems.

The role also contributes to responsible and trustworthy AI through evaluation, observability, reproducibility, lineage, security, and operational resilience. It includes participation in architecture and code reviews, establishing engineering standards, improving technical quality, mentoring less-experienced engineers, and helping teams adopt AI with confidence. This is a hybrid role: colleagues must live within commuting distance of a Pfizer location and work on-site an average of 2.5 days per week.

Requirements

• PhD in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or a related technical discipline, with demonstrated experience building software, systems, or machine learning solutions and at least 2 years of relevant experience; or a master's degree with at least 5 years of relevant experience; or a bachelor's degree with at least 6 years of relevant experience.
• Demonstrated experience designing and delivering production software or machine learning systems.
• Experience owning technical solutions from architecture through deployment.
• Experience building reliable systems in cloud, distributed computing, or high-performance computing environments.
• Ability to develop maintainable, testable, and scalable software.
• Strong proficiency in Python software development.
• Proficiency with modern machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX.
• Proficiency in software architecture and system design.
• Proficiency with APIs, testing, debugging, version control, and technical documentation.
• Proficiency with containers, orchestration, CI/CD, and deployment workflows.
• Depth in one or more of the following: distributed GPU training; model serving and inference optimization; AI platforms and MLOps; data and knowledge systems; LLM and agentic architectures; retrieval systems and RAG; AI evaluation frameworks; or performance and infrastructure optimization.
• Ability to work effectively across interdisciplinary teams, navigate ambiguity, and solve complex problems.
• Ability to communicate technical concepts to broad audiences and influence decisions through expertise and execution.
• Ability to support and develop less-experienced teammates.
• Must be authorized to work in the United States by any employer; U.S. work visa sponsorship is not available now or in the future, and permanent U.S. work authorization is required.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in life sciences, healthcare, biotechnology, or highly regulated industries.
• Experience with multimodal AI, scientific machine learning, computational biology, or cheminformatics.
• Experience implementing responsible AI practices, evaluation frameworks, and governance controls.
• Evidence of technical impact through deployed systems, publications, patents, open-source contributions, or reusable engineering platforms.

Responsibilities

• Design, develop, and deploy production-grade AI systems supporting multimodal biomedical models and intelligent agents.
• Engineer data pipelines, retrieval systems, evaluation frameworks, knowledge systems, inference services, and human-in-the-loop workflows.
• Create scalable software that moves AI capabilities from experimentation into everyday scientific use.
• Translate scientific and business needs into technical solutions.
• Lead architecture, implementation, testing, deployment, monitoring, and continuous improvement for an area of ownership.
• Drive projects from concept through production and operational support.
• Partner with AI scientists, computational biologists, data engineers, and platform teams to turn prototypes into reusable, reliable, maintainable systems.
• Make engineering tradeoffs involving performance, scalability, cost, reliability, security, privacy, maintainability, and delivery speed.
• Strengthen model evaluation, observability, reproducibility, lineage, security, and operational resilience to support responsible AI deployment.
• Contribute to architecture reviews, code reviews, engineering standards, and reusable technical patterns.
• Troubleshoot complex problems and improve engineering quality across the organization.
• Provide guidance and support to less-experienced engineers through collaboration, code reviews, and technical coaching.
• Define success metrics and operational indicators and improve performance, reliability, usability, and scientific impact.
• Help teams adopt AI with confidence and scale.

Benefits

• 401(k) plan with Pfizer Matching Contributions and an additional Pfizer Retirement Savings Contribution.
• Paid vacation, holiday, and personal days.
• Paid caregiver, parental, and medical leave.
• Medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage.
• Eligibility to participate in Pfizer’s share-based long-term incentive program.
• Potential relocation assistance based on business needs and/or eligibility.
• Comprehensive benefits and programs intended to support colleagues’ health and life events.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior