Associate Director, Discovery Informatics

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.

Job Function:

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function:

Data Science

Job Category:

People Leader

All Job Posting Locations:

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America, Spring House, Pennsylvania, United States of America

Job Description:

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients, whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow.
 

Join us in developing treatments, finding cures, and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way.
 

Learn more at https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine
 

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine is currently seeking an Associate Director, Discovery Informatics to join our In Silico Drug Discovery team located in either Spring House, PA (preferred) or Cambridge, MA. 
 

Why join us

• Lead a technically sophisticated team building next-generation scientific technology that directly impacts discovery programs.
• Opportunity to shape discovery informatics capabilities at scale in a cross-disciplinary discovery environment.
• Supportive culture that values scientific excellence, career growth, and collaboration.

Key responsibilities:

• Lead and mentor a high-performing team of scientists and engineer-scientists focused on developing scientific technologies for multiple modalities with a focus on peptide and small molecule discovery. Team deliverables include, but are not limited to, genAI design pipelines for peptide hit finding, ultra-large virtual screening workflows for small molecules, and end-user applications for molecule design and SAR analysis.
• Define and execute a technical roadmap that advances our in-house informatics capabilities and chemistry-focused data analytics applications
• Ensure the team delivers robust and roll out-ready tools and platforms to computational non-experts to enable self-service analysis
• Provide hands-on technical guidance and review
• Act as cross-functional partner to IT, chemistry, screening, and other wet-lab and in silico discovery groups to align deliverables with research needs, prioritize work, and translate scientific requirements into reliable tools
• Encourage a culture of scientific rigor, accountability, integrity, collaborative problem solving, and continual learning
• Manage and mentor junior scientists fostering their development as leading discovery informatics scientists

Requirements:

• Advanced degree (PhD preferred) in Computational Chemistry, Cheminformatics, Bioinformatics, Biophysics, Computer Science with strong domain experience, or related field.
• 8+ years of relevant industry experience in cheminformatics or related scientific technology roles
• Extensive hands-on experience in life science informatics working with large-scale data aggregation, manipulation, integration, mining, and analysis, including structured and unstructured data sources
• Excellent coding ability (preferably python) plus expertise in databases (e.g., PostGres, Snowflake) and ETL frameworks
• Solid understanding of drug discovery workflows — chemistry, screening, assay technologies, and common experimental data issues and artifacts.
• Demonstrated ability to ideate, implement, and deliver informatics solutions with measurable impact on portfolio projects
• Proven track record of partnering cross-functionally with chemists, biologists, screening teams, other in silico scientists and IT to deliver impactful tools and analyses.
• Excellent communication skills, ability to explain technical trade-offs to scientific and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong commitment to integrity, accountability, and talent development.
• High creativity, curiosity and willingness to continuously learn and adapt in a constantly changing digital landscape

Preferred qualifications

• People leadership and mentoring experience are highly preferred.
• First-hand experience in small molecule or peptide drug discovery; experience in more than one modality is a plus.
• Experience with machine learning applications in molecular design (sequence models, generative models, property prediction).
• Familiarity with agentic systems and their application to pharmaceutical research.
• Prior involvement in building or scaling internal platforms used by chemists and bench scientists (dashboards, analysis apps, data lakes).
• Hands-on experience with cheminformatics toolkits and libraries and molecular modeling software (e.g., Schroedinger, Rosetta, MOE)
• Experience with ultra high-throughput virtual screening and large chemical spaces
• Proficiency in front-end technologies and visualization techniques, preferably with previous experience in the development of visualization tools to enable drug discovery
• Experience in software engineering, cloud architecture, and CI/CD

This position will be located in either Spring House, PA (preferred) or Cambridge, MA. (No fully remote option available.) Up to approximately 10% travel may be required.

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability, protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal, state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act. 

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants’ needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation, external applicants please contact us via https://www.jnj.com/contact-us/careers , internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

The anticipated base pay range for this position is $137,000 to $235,750. The Company maintains highly competitive, performance-based compensation programs. Under current guidelines, this position is eligible for an annual performance bonus in accordance with the terms of the applicable plan. The annual performance bonus is a cash bonus intended to provide an incentive to achieve annual targeted results by rewarding for individual and the corporation’s performance over a calendar/performance year. Bonuses are awarded at the Company’s discretion on an individual basis. 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
Additional information can be found through the link below. https://www.careers.jnj.com/employee-benefits

The compensation and benefits information set forth in this posting applies to candidates hired in the United States. Candidates hired outside the United States will be eligible for compensation and benefits in accordance with their local market.
 

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Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics, Budget Management, Compliance Management, Critical Thinking, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Data Analysis, Data Privacy Standards, Data Quality, Data Reporting, Data Savvy, Data Science, Data Visualization, Developing Others, Digital Fluency, Inclusive Leadership, Leadership, Strategic Thinking, Team Management