Merck Posted November 5, 2026

Senior Scientist, Synthetic Purification (On-site)

Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America FULL_TIME
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Merck 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

Job Description

Our Research Scientists are our Inventors. We identify and target steps in disease mechanisms or pathways that could be inhibited or enhanced. Our goal is to use innovative thinking, state-of-the-art facilities, and robust scientific methodology, we collaborate to discover the next medical breakthrough.

As a Senior Scientist in the multiscale separations team within the Separations Sciences team of Analytical Enabling Capabilities, you will work within a highly collaborative team to enable the advancement of the development pipeline. You will be primarily responsible for chromatographic isolation of pharmaceutical API and impurities from analytical scale to semi-prep scale and prep scale, covering the space of small molecules, peptides, conjugate-based modalities as well as emerging modalities in our portfolio. To accelerate the development of new medicines and vaccines, you will partner with process chemists and analytical scientists to deploy efficient and fit-for-purpose chemical isolation methods, to establish innovative purification workflows, and to deliver high purity materials. As a member of our team, you will be joining a diverse group of scientific problem solvers, who are dedicated to creating the life-changing products of tomorrow.

Education Minimum Requirements: 

Ph.D. in Synthetic Chemistry, Natural product chemistry, Analytical Chemistry or a related field.

M.S. with a minimum of 5 years of experience in the Biopharmaceutical industry.

Required Experience and Skills:

Experience in analytical, semi-prep/prep scale chromatography (RPLC, NPLC, SFC), technologies, instrumentation, and workflows, with demonstrated experience in its applications in chiral, achiral isolation of challenging pharmaceutical mixtures to support a variety of pharmaceutical modalities including small molecules, peptides, antibody-drug conjugates and vaccines adjuvants etc.

Experience in mass spectrometry and its application in MS-directed chromatographic purification.

Working knowledge of orthogonal detection technologies, including PDA, Multi-angle light scattering, charged aerosol detection etc.

Creative problem solving in scientific research and development, with proven track-record of translating R&D problem solving into impactful pipeline deliveries.

External scientific engagement that may include a combination of publications, industry white paper contributions, presentations at scientific meetings.

Excellent scientific writing and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Experience and Skills:

Experience working in the bio-pharmaceutical industry as Postdoc or intern is preferred.

EligibleforERP

Required Skills:

Analytical Chemistry, Analytical Method Development, Assay Development, Biopharmaceuticals, Chemical Synthesis, Chemistry, Chromatography, Mass Spectrometry (MS), Method Development, Purification Methods, Small Molecules, Synthetic Chemistry, Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Technical Writing, Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC)

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights

EEOC GINA Supplement​

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts

The primary location for this posting is:

USA - New Jersey - Rahway

Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.

The salary range for the primary location of this role is:

$117,000.00 - $184,200.00

This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits .

Additional location(s): Please note the salary range above applies to the Primary Location of the position. Where a role has other listed locations, different compensation guidelines may apply. You may find the salary ranges for additional locations below. If the salary range is not listed for the location you are applying to, our Talent Acquisition team will provide further information to you relevant to your location.

Additional location(s) Compensation Information:

San Francisco Residents Only:  We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:  We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles’ Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 

Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

Yes

Travel Requirements:

No Travel Required

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Not Applicable

Shift:

1st - Day

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

11/13/2026 *A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE  the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Requisition ID:R425747

Job details

Seniority
Senior
Function
Manufacturing & CMC
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Rahway, New Jersey, United States of America
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Manufacturing & CMC role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 632 comparable Senior Manufacturing & CMC roles across 86 biopharma companies.

632Comparable roles tracked
584Currently active
86Companies hiring similar roles
30Countries represented

Salary context

227 of 632 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 Technician Calibration - Maintenance · Mylan Technologies, Inc. $37,000/yr – $80,000/yr
Highest disclosed · Associate Director / Director - Biologics Drug Product Development · AbbVie $160,500/yr – $305,000/yr
Peer group range $58,500 – $232,750 (median $151,700)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 632 comparable roles

United States418
India44
Ireland25
Netherlands19
China12
Switzerland11

+ 24 more countries

Seniority mix

632 of 632 peers have a known seniority level

Senior402
Principal126
Associate Director104

Therapeutic area mix

2 of 632 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Dermatology & Aesthetics1
Vaccines & Infectious Disease1

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
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
AbbVie North Chicago, IL Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Novartis East Hanover, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Pfizer Andover, United States Senior
Same function Same seniority Same country

Notify me about similar jobs

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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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Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
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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.