Director/ Head Research Engineering

Director of Research Engineering

Location: Remote or hybrid in Cambridge, Lawrenceville, San Diego, Brisbane, or Seattle sites (strong preference for Cambridge, MA)

Job Description: The Director of Research Engineering is a service-oriented, forward-thinking team leader who is responsible for overseeing a team engaged in the collaborative design, development, and implementation of scientific use-case driven, experimental, innovative, scientific data management and analytical platforms, within the Informatics and Predictive Sciences (IPS) department at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). This role leverages deep scientific and technical expertise, close collaboration with scientific researchers, and knowledge of modern best practices in cloud-based scientific application development and recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) to build, deploy, and enhance a mix of bespoke, commercial and open-source scientific data management and delivery systems, data ingestion pipelines, visualizations, and analytical tools. This position oversees work performed within the Research Engineering team that works closely with scientific subject matter experts, product and program managers, and Research and Enterprise IT teams to ensure that architectural design, resourcing, product development and delivery align with business objectives, scientific needs, and technical best practices.

Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with research leadership to ensure clear communication, tracking, and delivery of shared research objectives.
• Ensure that staffing objectives are met through onboarding and mentorship for research engineering full-time talent, as well as oversight of consulting resources across multiple vendors.
• Provide guidance to development teams on the appropriate selection of programming languages, evaluation frameworks, security and testing methodologies, and system scalability strategies.
• Collaboratively develop new data engineering approaches to accelerate data discovery, delivery, and analysis, including the use of LLMs.
• Provide thought leadership on emerging LLM and AI models and capabilities and drive experimentation in service to BMS use cases.
• Evaluate third party data engineering and LLM solutions and manage vendor contracts.
• Participate in organizational budget planning and management and provide leadership for budgeting decisions for Research Engineering.
• Collaborate closely with IT to perform risk assessments on new or existing cloud architectures and vendor solutions to identify cost, scalability, or any other infrastructure management concerns.
• Provide oversight and guidance regarding regulatory requirements for custom developed, commercial and/or open-source systems, including 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, GDPR, GxP, etc.

Skills:

• Experience building and maintaining cloud-native applications using core AWS services such as IAM, S3, Athena, Glue, Batch, Lambda, Fargate, API Gateway, Bedrock, etc.
• Advanced proficiency with Python, SQL, R, database design, and at least one front end development framework (React, Angular, Streamlit, or similar).
• Experience with large-scale scientific systems design and integration patterns, including mapping use cases to best practice architectural and integration patterns.
• Ability to deliver performance evaluations, benchmarking, and troubleshooting of AI or LLM-based applications.
• Familiarity with containerization approaches, agile methodologies, and cloud-native development patterns.
• Experience building or enhancing a laboratory informatics system (LIMS), specifically in a research or drug development context.
• Ability to explore and pilot innovative technology solutions, including LLM technologies.
• Experience managing large development teams and projects in a highly collaborative environment.
• Experience in managing budgets, and vendor contracts.

Basic Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree with 15+ years of academic / industry experience
• Or master's degree with 12+ years of academic / industry experience
• Or PhD with 8+ years of academic / industry experience in an engineering or biology field.
• 6+ years of leadership experience

Preferred Qualifications:

• Combined 10+ years' experience developing large-scale cloud-based scientific data management and/or analytical platforms in a Biotechnology or Pharmaceutical industry with 6+ years' experience in a relevant leadership role.
• Experience in a strategic architecture role working with LLM capabilities including use of industry leading models, RAG approaches, agentic frameworks, LLM testing frameworks, etc.
• Excellent communication skills: Demonstrated experience interacting with technical product designers to gather solution architecture requirements, and ability to perform designated tasks in a timely manner.
• Proven track record of successfully managing technical projects and leading cross-functional teams.
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced research and technical environment.
• Demonstrated capacity for independent thinking and care about the underlying biological questions and advancement of science for patient benefit.

Compensation Overview:

Cambridge Crossing: $239,890 - $290,687

Princeton - NJ - US: $214,190 - $259,550

Seattle - WA: $231,320 - $280,304

The starting compensation range(s) for this role are listed above for a full-time employee (FTE) basis. Additional incentive cash and stock opportunities (based on eligibility) may be available. The starting pay rate takes into account characteristics of the job, such as required skills, where the job is performed, the employee's work schedule, job-related knowledge, and experience. Final, individual compensation will be decided based on demonstrated experience. Eligibility for specific benefits listed on our careers site may vary based on the job and location.

Uniquely Interesting Work, Life-changing Careers

With a single vision as inspiring as "Transforming patients' lives through science", every BMS employee plays an integral role in work that goes far beyond ordinary. Each of us is empowered to apply our individual talents and unique perspectives in a supportive culture, promoting global participation in clinical trials, while our shared values of passion, innovation, urgency, accountability, inclusion, and integrity bring out the highest potential of each of our colleagues.

On-site Protocol

BMS has an occupancy structure that determines where an employee is required to conduct their work. This structure includes site-essential, site-by-design, field-based, and remote-by-design jobs. The occupancy type that you are assigned is determined by the nature and responsibilities of your role:

Site-essential roles require 100% of shifts onsite at your assigned facility. Site-by-design roles may be eligible for a hybrid work model with at least 50% onsite at your assigned facility. For these roles, onsite presence is considered an essential job function and is critical to collaboration, innovation, productivity, and a positive Company culture. For field-based and remote-by-design roles, the ability to physically travel to visit customers, patients, or business partners and to attend meetings on behalf of BMS as directed is an essential job function.

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments, and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

BMS cares about your well-being and the well-being of our staff, customers, patients, and communities. As a result, the Company strongly recommends that all employees be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 and keep up to date with Covid-19 boosters.

BMS will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

If you live in or expect to work from Los Angeles County if hired for this position, please visit this page for important additional information: https://careers.bms.com/california-residents/.

Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.