Sr Scientist - Large Molecule Ontology Specialist
About this opportunity
Career Category
Research
Job Description
HOW MIGHT YOU DEFY IMAGINATION?
If you feel like you’re part of something bigger, it’s because you are. At Amgen, our shared mission, to serve patients, drives all that we do. It is key to our becoming one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. We are global collaborators who achieve together, researching, manufacturing, and delivering ever-better products that reach over 10 million patients worldwide. It’s time for a career you can be proud of.
Large Molecule Ontology Specialist (Large Molecule Discovery Informatics)
Live
What you will do
Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital and exciting role, you will serve as a Large Molecule Ontology Specialist within the Research organization, driving the development and implementation of ontology, metadata, and semantic data frameworks that enable scalable AI, advanced analytics, and cross-functional scientific collaboration.
You will be responsible for defining and implementing assay and metadata standards across Large Molecule Discovery (LMD), ensuring semantic consistency and interoperability across experimental platforms, scientific workflows, and data modalities. The successful candidate will partner closely with research scientists, informaticians, data engineers, and enterprise data governance teams to establish harmonized ontologies, metadata frameworks, and FAIR data practices that improve data discoverability, reuse, and AI readiness.
Operating at the intersection of biology, data science, and informatics, you will combine scientific domain expertise with a deep understanding of semantic technologies, ontology management, and scientific data standards to build foundational capabilities that accelerate discovery.
In this role, your core responsibilities include:
Develop and maintain LMD ontology frameworks, semantic standards, and controlled vocabularies across key discovery workflows and datasets
Align ontologies with enterprise data standards and relevant external scientific ontologies
Manage ontology lifecycle processes, including governance, versioning, change control, and stakeholder engagement
Define metadata models and requirements that improve data consistency, traceability, quality, and reuse
Advance FAIR data practices by establishing maturity metrics, monitoring KPIs, and embedding reusable data practices into research workflows
Partner with AI/ML, data engineering, and scientific teams to structure interoperable data assets for analytics, model training, and discovery
Collaborate with data product owners, data engineers, platform teams, and scientists to embed FAIR data practices into research workflows and data products
Serve as a subject matter expert for semantic technologies, scientific data standards, stakeholder alignment, and ontology-enabled discovery capabilities
Win
What we expect of you
We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The dynamic professional we seek is a subject matter expert with these qualifications.
Basic Qualifications:
Doctorate degree with 7+ in Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, Data Science, Information Science, Life Sciences, Computer Science, or a related field and relevant industry experience
Master’s degree with 8+ years of relevant experience, OR
Bachelor’s degree with 10+ years of relevant experience
Preferred Qualifications:
Experience developing biomedical or scientific ontologies and applying semantic technologies, ontology design principles, and metadata management practices
Proficiency with ontology and data standards tools and frameworks such as OWL, RDF, SKOS, Protégé, FAIR principles, and life science data standards
Experience integrating structured and unstructured scientific data across domains using data models, metadata architecture, and knowledge graph concepts
Familiarity with AI/ML data requirements, scientific data engineering practices, large-scale data quality monitoring, Python, and SQL
Strong ability to influence across matrixed organizations, facilitate stakeholder alignment, and communicate effectively in writing and verbally
Experience leading cross-functional standards-development initiatives and working in SAFe/Agile environments
Thrive
What you can expect of us
As we work to develop treatments that take care of others, we also work to care for our teammates’ professional and personal growth and well-being.
Apply now
for a career that defies imagination
Objects in your future are closer than they appear. Join us.
careers.amgen.com
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.
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 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.
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Job details
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.
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.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 188 comparable roles
+ 6 more countries
Seniority mix
188 of 188 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
29 of 188 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
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.
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.
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.