Amgen Inc. Posted November 6, 2026

Process Development Senior Principal Scientist

Thousand Oaks, United States Full time
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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. 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.

Senior Principal Scientist, Commercial Drug Products & Life Cycle Management

What you will do

Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital role you will be part of Amgen’s Process Development organization, Drug Product Technologies unit that continuously strives to be a technical leader in delivering superior, robust drug product manufacturing processes, high-quality CMC sections, and ensuring supply of commercial products. Drug Product Team leaders (DPTLs) play a central role in this process by serving as single point of accountability for individual drug product programs for technical activities specific to formulation, aseptic drug product process design and validation, integrated development of combination products, process improvements, life cycle changes, regulatory submissions, annual product reviews, etc. DPTLs are part of an integrated operations team and lead a technical team responsible for delivering drug product process transfers, process optimization, process trouble shooting, timely closure of non-conformance investigations and change control assessments to ensure supply of commercial drug products. We are seeking an Sr. Principal Scientist to lead commercial drug product programs as DPTL and lead a scientific team that supports advancing the commercial drug product programs in our portfolio.

Serve as a leader on Drug Product Commercialization Teams responsible for planning, designing, executing, and documenting laboratory studies related to drug product design, formulation, and process development in support of commercialization and lifecycle management of parenteral presentations.

Lead a team of scientists focused on late-stage drug product process development and tech transfer and coach staff with emphasis on people-centered leadership.

Provide support, as needed, to clinical and commercial fill/finish manufacturing operations through process capability analysis, troubleshooting, root cause analysis, and product impact assessments for non-conformance investigations and process changes/improvements.

Drive continuous improvement in the drug product development process through technological innovation and application of first principles in process engineering.

Participate and lead global cross-functional teams working effectively in a highly matrixed team environment to influence and drive change, efficiency, and foster strong relationships.

Author and review guideline documents, technical protocols, reports, product impact assessments, regulatory submissions, and developing responses to regulatory questions.

Deliver progress reports and presentations to ensure management awareness and engagement of the status, progress, and future program and functional needs.

Actively utilize advanced IS systems to improve drug product design through faster data availability, leveraging historical information, analyzing large data sets, and statistical analysis.

Ability to travel domestically and internationally up to 10% of the time.

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 leader with these qualifications .

Basic Qualifications:

Doctorate degree PhD OR PharmD OR MD [and relevant post-doc where applicable] and 3 years of engineering or science experience OR

Master’s degree and 6 years of engineering or science experience OR

Bachelor’s degree and 8 years of engineering or science experience

Preferred Qualifications:

Advanced degree in Pharmaceutics, Biotechnology, Engineering or related discipline and industry experience in pharmaceuticals/biotechnology

Demonstrated knowledge of drug product commercialization and integrated combination product development with hands-on experience with end-to-end development for liquid, lyophilized and/or oral solid dosage drug products in various presentations

Demonstrated experience in process transfers, control strategy, authoring MAs, developing robust responses to regulatory questions, supporting validation activities and PAIs at commercial sites

Understanding of physical/chemical stability of proteins and how process related stress impacts product quality, specifically, the impact of freezing and drying to short- and long-term stability

Strong knowledge about developing processes with single-use manufacturing equipment

Aseptic processing experience and familiarity with cGMPs, ICH guidelines

Experience that includes elements of new product development, process characterization, equipment design and implementation, technical transfers to global manufacturing sites, statistical process control (SPC), and statistical design and analysis of experiments

Strong problem solving and effective cross-functional communication skills

Proven ability to learn and act on dynamic information at a rapid pace

Ability to participate in global cross-functional teams and work effectively in a highly matrixed environment to lead change, efficiency, and strong cross functional relationships

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 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. We make all employment decisions without regard to race, color, religion, sex or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

We provide reasonable accommodations to applicants and employees with disabilities, consistent with legal requirements. Please contact us to request accommodation.

. Salary Range

157,737.05USD -213,408.95 USD

Job details

Seniority
Principal
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 425 comparable Principal Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research roles across 58 biopharma companies.

425Comparable roles tracked
404Currently active
58Companies hiring similar roles
22Countries represented

Salary context

196 of 425 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
Lowest disclosed · Senior Primate Behavior Specialist · Labcorp $70,000/yr – $80,000/yr
Peer group range $75,000 – $322,000 (median $166,400)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 425 comparable roles

United States321
China22
India17
United Kingdom8
Switzerland8
Germany6

+ 16 more countries

Seniority mix

425 of 425 peers have a known seniority level

Senior216
Principal148
Director61

Therapeutic area mix

52 of 425 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology20
Immunology16
Neuroscience9
Cardiovascular / CVRM5
Vaccines & Infectious Disease2

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 Principal
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60%similar
Lilly Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America Principal
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60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Principal
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AbbVie North Chicago, IL Principal
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AbbVie San Francisco, CA Principal
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Notify me about similar jobs

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Or follow a whole field: get every new Drug Discovery & Preclinical Research job in the United States, and choose locations and companies.

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%
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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.