Principal Scientist – Surface Biology Early Validation Lead

Career Category

Clinical

Job Description

Join Amgen’s Mission of Serving Patients

At Amgen, if you feel like you’re part of something bigger, it’s because you are. Our shared mission, to serve patients living with serious illnesses, drives all that we do.

Since 1980, we’ve helped pioneer the world of biotech in our fight against the world’s toughest diseases. With our focus on four therapeutic areas –Oncology, Inflammation, General Medicine, and Rare Disease– we reach millions of patients each year. Amgen is advancing a broad and deep pipeline of medicines to treat cancer, heart disease, inflammatory conditions, rare diseases, and obesity and obesity-related conditions. As a member of the Amgen team, you’ll help make a lasting impact on the lives of patients as we research, manufacture, and deliver innovative medicines to help people live longer, fuller happier lives.

Our award-winning culture is collaborative, innovative, and science based. If you have a passion for challenges and the opportunities that lay within them, you’ll thrive as part of the Amgen team. Join us and transform the lives of patients while transforming your career.

Principal Scientist – Surface Biology Early Validation Lead

What you will do

Let’s do this. Let’s change the world.

We are building a high-throughput Surface Biology capability to identify, validate, and characterize cell type-specific cell-surface targets across multiple Therapeutic Areas. Our mission is to generate the biological understanding needed to determine whether candidate proteins represent compelling therapeutic opportunities and to identify the therapeutic modality best suited to exploit their biology.

The Surface Biology team sits at the intersection of target discovery, cell biology, and therapeutic development. We develop scalable experimental approaches to answer fundamental questions about cell-surface biology:

Is a candidate protein truly present on the cell surface?

Is cell-surface localization specific to the disease-relevant cell type?

What biological properties make this target therapeutically actionable?

Which therapeutic modality is best suited for this target?

Answering these questions requires both high-throughput experimental platforms and deep mechanistic understanding of protein localization, trafficking, membrane protein topology, and cellular protein biology.

We are seeking an experienced Principal Scientist to lead a multidisciplinary team responsible for developing innovative experimental strategies that validate cell-surface targets and generate biologically meaningful datasets that directly influence target prioritization and therapeutic strategy across the discovery portfolio.

In this role, you will operate in a highly collaborative environment, partnering with Therapeutic Area teams and platform functions to deliver biologically relevant insights that support target evaluation.

Responsibilities:

Provide scientific and operational leadership for a multidisciplinary team supporting discovery and validation of cell type-specific cell-surface targets.

Develop innovative experimental strategies and scalable cell-based assays to determine whether candidate proteins are truly accessible at the cell surface and selectively expressed in disease-relevant cell types.

Characterize target biology, including cell-surface localization, antigen density, accessibility, trafficking, internalization, and turnover, to guide therapeutic modality selection.

Investigate the biological mechanisms underlying cell-surface localization when needed, including protein trafficking, alternative isoforms, topology, and post-translational processing.

Integrate experimental findings with proteomic, transcriptomic, and computational datasets to generate biologically meaningful insights for target prioritization.

Partner closely with Therapeutic Areas and cross-functional teams to translate target biology into therapeutic strategies.

Evaluate and implement emerging technologies that improve the throughput, robustness, and biological relevance of the Surface Biology platform.

Mentor and develop scientists while fostering a collaborative, innovative, and scientifically rigorous research environment.

What we expect of you

We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The professional we seek is a Principal Scientist with these qualifications.

Basic Qualifications:

Doctorate degree and 3 years of scientific experience OR

Master’s degree and 7 years of scientific experience OR

Bachelor’s degree and 9 years of scientific experience OR

Associate’s degree and 12 years of scientific experience OR

High school diploma / GED and 14 years of scientific experience

In addition to meeting at least one of the above requirements, you must have a minimum of 3 years of experience directly managing people and/or leadership experience leading teams, projects, programs, or directing the allocation of resources.  Your managerial experience may run concurrently with the required technical experience referenced above

Preferred Qualifications:

PhD in Cell Biology, Molecular Biology, or related discipline

5+ years of relevant industry experience, including leadership of scientific projects or teams

Expertise in cell-surface biology, membrane protein biology, protein trafficking, receptor biology, or related areas of cell biology.

Demonstrated experience developing quantitative cell-based assays to characterize target biology and support early target validation.

Understanding of the biological properties that influence therapeutic modality selection, including antigen density, accessibility, internalization, and receptor trafficking.

Experience investigating mechanisms that regulate cell-surface localization, such as protein topology, intracellular trafficking, alternative splice isoforms, or post-translational processing.

Experience with flow cytometry, microscopy, high-content imaging, proteomics, or related quantitative approaches.

Proven scientific leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and strong communication skills

What you can expect of us

As we work to develop treatments that take care of others, we also work to care for your professional and personal growth and well-being. From our competitive benefits to our collaborative culture, we’ll support your journey every step of the way.

The expected annual salary range for this role in the U.S. (excluding Puerto Rico) is posted. Actual salary will vary based on several factors including but not limited to, relevant skills, experience, and qualifications.

In addition to the base salary, Amgen offers a Total Rewards Plan, based on eligibility, comprising of health and welfare plans for staff and eligible dependents, financial plans with opportunities to save towards retirement or other goals, work/life balance, and career development opportunities that may include:

A comprehensive employee benefits package, including a Retirement and Savings Plan with generous company contributions, group medical, dental and vision coverage, life and disability insurance, and flexible spending accounts

A discretionary annual bonus program, or for field sales representatives, a sales-based incentive plan

Stock-based long-term incentives

Award-winning time-off plans

Flexible work models where possible. Refer to the Work Location Type in the job posting to see if this applies.

Apply now and make a lasting impact with the Amgen team.

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In any materials you submit, you may redact or remove age-identifying information such as age, date of birth, or dates of school attendance or graduation. You will not be penalized for redacting or removing this information.

Application deadline

Amgen does not have an application deadline for this position; we will continue accepting applications until we receive a sufficient number or select a candidate for the position.

Sponsorship

Sponsorship for this role is not guaranteed.

As an organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people around the world, Amgen fosters an inclusive environment of diverse, ethical, committed and highly accomplished people who respect each other and live the Amgen values to continue advancing science to serve patients. Together, we compete in the fight against serious disease.

Amgen is an Equal Opportunity employer and will consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or any other basis protected by applicable law.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided 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 accommodation.

. Salary Range

140,123.35USD -189,578.65 USD