Senior Scientist, AI Applications - R&D Oncology

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine • San Diego, CA

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com. As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world. We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual. At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit. Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is recruiting for a Senior Scientist, AI Applications, R&D Oncology to join our Data Science and Digital Health team (DSDH). This position will be located at one of our offices in either Spring House PA (preferred), Cambridge MA, or San Diego CA (La Jolla area). Consideration may be given for our Titusville and Raritan, NJ locations. The Senior Scientist, AI Applications will work closely with the Machine Intelligence (MI) team within Data Science and Digital Health (DSDH) AI/ML to develop and deliver artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) scientific applications. This is a role for a mission-driven Scientist aimed at developing the future of autonomous AI in oncology drug discovery and development. As a Senior Scientist you will work with Large Language Models (LLMs) and sophisticated data science techniques, harnessing massive datasets spanning scientific literature, omics, and biomolecular knowledge. Your work will directly accelerate research across the drug development pipeline, including novel target discovery, translational research and clinical trials—making reasoning agents faster, more accurate, and more reliable. Key focus areas include multimodal reasoning, agent robustness and uncertainty, agent memory architecture, and agent motivation frameworks. This role will transform AI/ML needs into actionable science, and work hands on to deliver decision-driving results. You will connect research across the entire R&D lifecycle so broad knowledge of how advanced analytics is applied across Johnson and Johnson Innovative Medicine pipeline is expected.

Requirements

• A Ph.D. degree in AI/ML or related field (e.g., computer science, machine learning, data science, applied mathematics, statistics) with at least two (2) years working experience
• Knowledge in sophisticated mathematics areas such as Bayesian inference, uncertainty quantification, information theory, causal inferencing, graph neural networks, etc.
• Proficiency with open-source agentic frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, DSPy, mem0, etc.) and deep learning frameworks (e.g., PyTorch, Tensorflow, etc.)
• Proficiency in one or more programming languages – preferably Python
• Positive and motivated demeanor with the ability to work both independently and in a diverse, multi-disciplinary team

Nice To Haves

• Understanding of drug discovery pipeline and familiarity with biological data types, experience in oncology research
• Strong understanding of statistics and applicable methods to validate model performance
• Familiarity with cloud hosting solutions (ex. AWS and/or Azure)

Responsibilities

• This is an individual contributor position focused on hands-on technical delivery of advanced analytic (AI/ML) Oncology R&D research.
• You will work with Oncology R&D and Data Science business leaders to translate business opportunities into hands on research plans.
• The Senior Scientist will develop and optimize multimodal reasoning systems that integrate large-scale structured and unstructured data to derive actionable conclusions
• Build novel agent memory architectures to enable persistent knowledge retention and context-aware decision-making across extended discovery workflows
• Prototype and evaluate innovative approaches for uncertainty quantification and reliability assessment in AI-driven scientific reasoning
• Serve as a domain expert within the field by articulating to team members emerging approaches and methodologies within the AI/ML with a clear understanding of their practical applications within the industry
• Benchmark agent performance against human expert decisions and existing computational methods and demonstrate ability to publish results in leading journals and conferences
• Define and enforce engineering best practices across AI prototyping, including architecture patterns, documentation standards, quality gates, and reproducibility criteria
• Serve as a key contributor to the over-arching AI strategy and to enable the scaling and deployment of tools aimed at the broader R&D community.

Benefits

• Employees and/or eligible dependents may be eligible to participate in the following Company sponsored employee benefit programs: medical, dental, vision, life insurance, short- and long-term disability, business accident insurance, and group legal insurance.
• Employees may be eligible to participate in the Company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).
• Employees are eligible for the following time off benefits: Vacation – up to 120 hours per calendar year Sick time - up to 40 hours per calendar year Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays – up to 13 days per calendar year of Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year

What This Job Offers

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