Principal Data Scientist – AI/ML and Optimization

At Johnson & Johnson, we believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build a world where complex diseases are prevented, treated, and cured, where treatments are smarter and less invasive, and solutions are personal. Through our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech, we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow, and profoundly impact health for humanity. Learn more at jnj.com.

As guided by Our Credo, Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world. We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual. At Johnson & Johnson, we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

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Job Description:

J&J Innovative Medicine – Data, Data Science, and AI - Global Development (DDSAI GD) is recruiting a Principal Data Scientist – AI/ML and Optimization. The ideal candidate will leverage, adapt, and extend machine learning (ML), optimization techniques, and GenAI techniques to create computational pipelines supporting global clinical operations including enrollment forecasting, cost estimation and optimization, and country/site selection. 

The primary location is Madrid, Spain. Other listed locations will be considered if approved by the business.

J&J Innovative Medicine develops treatments that improve the health of people worldwide. Research and development areas encompass oncology, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders, immunology, pulmonary hypertension, neuroscience, and infectious disease. Our goal is to help people live longer, healthier lives. We have produced and marketed many first-in-class prescription medications and are poised to serve the broad needs of the healthcare market – from patients to practitioners and from clinics to hospitals. To learn more about J&J Innovative Medicine, visit https://www.jnj.com/innovative-medicine 

Key responsibilities: 

• Conceive, develop, and implement ML, multi-objective optimization, GenAI solutions to support clinical trial operations. 

• Leverage operational, real-world (RWD), and cost data to develop ML models and optimization engines that support data-driven decision making across operational planning. Specifically: 

• Develop predictive ML models to forecast operational time-series outcomes and KPIs. 

• Formulate and solve optimization problems that quantify tradeoffs among competing objectives, such as cost, timelines, patient burden, quality, and operational efficiency. 

• Integrate predictive modeling with optimization techniques to evaluate alternative operational scenarios, assess potential outcomes, and recommend optimal strategies. 

• Build explainable decision-support systems that translate complex analytics into actionable insights, enabling proactive planning, early risk identification, and informed business decision making. 

• Adapt large language models (LLMs) for tailored information extraction and to create solutions including conducting comparative analytics on clinical trial protocols and trial similarity assessment, clinical trial data harmonization and standardization, schedule of activity optimization, and eligibility criteria evaluation
• Stochastic enrollment simulations to forecast operational and patient journey outcomes including enrollment and study completion. 

• Clearly articulate highly technical methods and results to diverse audiences and partners to drive decision-making. 

• Coaches and trains junior colleagues in techniques, processes, and responsibilities. 

Required qualifications: 

• A Ph.D. degree in a quantitative discipline (e.g., computer science, electrical and computer engineering, biostatistics, health economics, biomedical informatics, applied mathematics, or similar), 

• 5+ years of industry experience delivering on data science projects using ML predictive modeling, multi-objective optimization, natural language processing, and GenAI. 

• Hands-on experience with multi-modal ML predictive modeling and stochastic simulations for time-series forecasting. 

• Experience building multi-objective optimization engines to navigate complex trade-offs using evolutionary algorithms, reinforcement learning, or mixed-integer linear programming. 

• Experience with GenAI and clinical LLMs for document parsing and clinical concept disambiguation and harmonization. 

• Proficient in MLOps practices and tools (MLflow, Kedro); Git usage, CI/CD stacks (Jenkins, GitLab) DevOps tools. 

• Proficiency with programming languages Python and SQL, 

• Experience with python LLM tools (e.g., DSPy, LangChain), optimization tools (e.g., pymoo) and ML tools (e.g., Scikit-learn, XGBoost, Optuna, PyMc), 

• Demonstrated experience and familiarity with clinical operational data, real world data, electronic health records and claims, and financial data. 

Preferred qualifications: 

• Prior experience in a data science AI/ML role in healthcare, MedTech, and pharmaceutical industries. 

• Hand-on experience utilizing clinical trial protocols, registry, cost data, CTMS, EDC and/or EHR to build ML models for estimating operational outcomes or RWE outcomes. 

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The anticipated base pay range for this position is:

Benefits:

In addition to base pay, we offer the following benefits*: an annual bonus with set target (% of pay) depending on pay grade / location, where the actual amount is based on the employees’ and companies’ performance of the previous calendar year, or sales commissions. Moreover, we offer vacation days, parental leave for a minimum of 12 weeks, bereavement leave, caregiver leave, volunteer leave, well-being reimbursement, programs for financial, physical and mental health. We also offer service anniversary and recognition awards, and subject to the terms of their respective plans, employees - and in some location’s eligible dependents - can participate in several insurance plans. For more information, visit Employee benefits | Supporting well-being & career growth | Johnson & Johnson Careers.

*This is for informative purposes only. Amounts and actual benefits may vary by location and are subject to change.