Principal Data Scientist

Principal Data Scientist

Role Name: Principal Data Scientist

Department Name: AI & Data Science

Role GCF: 6

Hiring Manager Name: Swaroop Suresh

ABOUT AMGEN

Amgen harnesses the best of biology and technology to fight the world’s toughest diseases, and make people’s lives easier, fuller and longer. We discover, develop, manufacture and deliver innovative medicines to help millions of patients. Amgen helped establish the biotechnology industry more than 40 years ago and remains on the cutting-edge of innovation, using technology and human genetic data to push beyond what’s known today.

ABOUT THE ROLE

Role Description:

We are seeking a Principal AI Platform Architect—Amgen’s most senior individual-contributor authority on building and scaling end-to-end machine-learning and generative-AI platforms. Sitting at the intersection of engineering excellence and data-science enablement, you will design the core services, infrastructure and governance controls that allow hundreds of practitioners to prototype, deploy and monitor models—classical ML, deep learning and LLMs—securely and cost-effectively. Acting as a “player-coach,” you will establish platform strategy, define technical standards, and partner with DevOps, Security, Compliance and Product teams to deliver a frictionless, enterprise-grade AI developer experience.

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Define and evangelise the multi-year AI-platform vision, architecture blueprints and reference implementations that align with Amgen’s digital-transformation and cloud-modernization objectives.
• Design and evolve foundational platform components—feature stores, model-registry, experiment-tracking, vector databases, real-time inference gateways and evaluation harnesses—using cloud-agnostic, micro-service principles.
• Implement robust MLOps pipelines (CI/CD for models, automated testing, canary releases, rollback) and enforce reproducibility from data ingestion to model serving.
• Embed responsible-AI and security-by-design controls—data-privacy, lineage tracking, bias monitoring, audit logging—through policy-as-code and automated guardrails.
• Serve as the ultimate technical advisor to product squads: codify best practices, review architecture/PRs, troubleshoot performance bottlenecks and guide optimisation of cloud resources.
• Partner with Procurement and Finance to develop TCO models, negotiate enterprise contracts for cloud/AI infrastructure, and continuously optimise spend.
• Drive platform adoption via self-service tools, documentation, SDKs and internal workshops; measure success through developer NPS, time-to-deploy and model uptime SLAs.
• Establish observability frameworks—metrics, distributed tracing, drift detection—to ensure models remain performant, reliable and compliant in production.
• Track emerging technologies (serverless GPUs, AI accelerators, confidential compute, policy frameworks like EU AI Act) and proactively integrate innovations that keep Amgen at the forefront of enterprise AI.

Must-Have Skills:

• 5-7 years in AI/ML, data platforms or enterprise software, including 3+ years leading senior ICs or managers.
• Proven track record selecting and integrating AI SaaS/PaaS offerings and building custom ML services at scale.
• Expert knowledge of GenAI tooling: vector databases, RAG pipelines, prompt-engineering DSLs and agent frameworks (e.g., LangChain, Semantic Kernel).
• Proficiency in Python and Java; containerisation (Docker/K8s); cloud (AWS, Azure or GCP) and modern DevOps/MLOps (GitHub Actions, Bedrock/SageMaker Pipelines).
• Strong business-case skills—able to model TCO vs. NPV and present trade-offs to executives.
• Exceptional stakeholder management; can translate complex technical concepts into concise, outcome-oriented narratives.

Good-to-Have Skills:

• Experience in Biotechnology or pharma industry is a big plus
• Published thought-leadership or conference talks on enterprise GenAI adoption.
• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science or MBA with AI focus.
• Familiarity with Agile methodologies and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) for project delivery.

Education and Professional Certifications

• Master’s degree with 10-14 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field 

OR

• Bachelor’s degree with 12-17 + years of experience in Computer Science, IT or related field 
• Certifications on GenAI/ML platforms (AWS AI, Azure AI Engineer, Google Cloud ML, etc.) are a plus.

Soft Skills:

• Excellent analytical and troubleshooting skills.
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Ability to work effectively with global, virtual teams
• High degree of initiative and self-motivation.
• Ability to manage multiple priorities successfully.
• Team-oriented, with a focus on achieving team goals.
• Ability to learn quickly, be organized and detail oriented.
• Strong presentation and public speaking skills.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITY STATEMENT

Amgen is an Equal Opportunity employer and will consider you without regard to your race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, or disability status.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided with reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment. Please contact us to request an accommodation.