Amgen Inc. Posted June 23, 2026

Process Development Senior Scientist

Thousand Oaks, United States Full time
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research Senior

Amgen Inc. is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

Career Category

Scientific

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.

Process Development Senior Scientist

What you will do

Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital role you will have the opportunity to work on complex synthetic molecule platforms, including targeted protein degraders, PROteolysis TArgeting Chimeras (PROTACs), molecular glues, and other beyond-rule-of-5 compounds with challenging physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties.

The scientist will primarily design and execute formulation and process development studies for oral solid dosage forms, ranging from conventional oral solid dosage formulations to advanced enabling formulation strategies intended to overcome solubility, dissolution, absorption, and bioavailability limitations. The scientist will develop robust, scalable, and phase-appropriate formulations suitable for IND-enabling studies and GMP clinical manufacturing.

This role provides significant opportunity to influence drug product strategy and advance next-generation oral delivery capabilities across Amgen’s synthetic molecule portfolio.

The individual will work closely with internal manufacturing and external manufacturing partners to support process scale-up, GMP clinical manufacturing, technology transfer, and regulatory submissions.  The scientist may support multiple fast-paced programs across oncology and other therapeutic areas with varying molecular and formulation complexities.

Key Responsibilities:

Serve as the Drug Product Team Lead and primary Drug Product functional representative on cross-functional synthetic molecule development teams

Independently lead drug product development strategy and execution for early clinical synthetic molecule programs

Lead and execute drug product development activities with a focus on right-first-time delivery, proactive risk management, and on-time achievement of program milestones.

Design and execute formulation and process development experiments for oral solid dosage forms, including platform and enabling formulations

Apply scientific understanding of material properties, biopharmaceutics, and manufacturability to formulation strategy selection and process development

Identify technical risks, develop mitigation strategies, and drive solutions to support program timelines and clinical objectives

Partner effectively across internal functions and external CMOs to support program execution, technology transfer, scale-up, and GMP clinical manufacturing

Author and review technical and regulatory documentation including INDs, CTAs and related CMC submissions

Present technical strategies, development plans, risks, and recommendations to cross-functional teams and governance forums

Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives and advancement of formulation and process development capabilities

What we expect of you

We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The Scientific professional we seek is an individual with these qualifications.

Basic Qualifications:

Doctorate degree PhD OR PharmD OR MD [and relevant post-doc where applicable]

OR

Master’s degree and 3 years of Scientific experience

OR

Bachelor’s degree and 5 years of Scientific experience

Preferred Qualifications:

Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, Chemistry, or related scientific discipline with emphasis on oral drug product development for advanced synthetic modalities including degraders and PROTACs.

Industry experience supporting early clinical drug product development programs preferred.

Hands-on experience with enabling solubility formulation technologies including hot melt extrusion (HME), spray dried dispersions (SDD), and downstream processing for oral solid dosage forms.

Experience supporting oral solid dosage form process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and GMP clinical manufacturing.

Strong understanding of formulation development for poorly soluble compounds and enabling bioavailability enhancement strategies.

Experience serving as a Drug Product or Formulation Development representative on interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary teams.

Experience authoring regulatory documentation including INDs, CTAs, and related RTQs.

Excellent interpersonal and verbal/written communication skills with demonstrated ability to manage complex cross-functional project activities.

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.

careers.amgen.com

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

126,066.05USD -170,559.95 USD

Job details

Seniority
Senior
Function
Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Thousand Oaks, United States
Employment type
Full time

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 188 comparable Senior Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 30 biopharma companies.

188Comparable roles tracked
170Currently active
30Companies hiring similar roles
12Countries represented

Salary context

62 of 188 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Highest disclosed · Senior Principal Scientist, Pharmacokinetics · Merck $194,100/yr – $305,600/yr
Peer group range $105,700 – $249,850 (median $164,150)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 188 comparable roles

United States153
India8
Germany5
United Kingdom5
Canada4
China's Mainland3

+ 6 more countries

Seniority mix

188 of 188 peers have a known seniority level

Senior110
Principal57
Associate Director21

Therapeutic area mix

29 of 188 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology16
Cardiovascular / CVRM7
Immunology4
Neuroscience1
Respiratory1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck South San Francisco, California, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Merck Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

60%
Scientist/Sr Scientist, Discovery Strategy and Operations
Lilly · Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Scientist, Computational Safety & Exploratory Pharmacology
Merck · West Point, Pennsylvania, United States of America · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Sr. Scientist, Primary Pharmacology
Pfizer · Groton, United States · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Senior Scientist, Toxicology II
AbbVie · North Chicago, IL · Senior
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.