Senior Expert (AI Engineering)

Job Description Summary

Job Title: Senior Expert (AI Engineering)
#LI-Hybrid

Location: Cambridge, USA

Relocation Support: This role is based in Cambridge, USA. Novartis is unable to offer relocation support: please only apply if accessible.

Imagine shaping how breakthrough medicines are discovered by bringing cutting-edge AI from concept to real-world application. As a Senior Expert in AI Engineering, you will sit at the critical intersection of innovation and delivery—transforming advanced machine learning models into scalable, reliable solutions that accelerate drug discovery. Collaborating with leading scientists and AI experts, you will drive the translation of pioneering research into impactful tools, ensuring models are reproducible, efficient, and ready to solve complex biomedical challenges. This is an opportunity to directly influence how modern AI reshapes scientific discovery and improves patient outcomes.

Job Description

Key Responsibilities

• Design and train advanced machine learning models for drug discovery, including deep learning and graph-based architectures
• Own end-to-end model lifecycle from problem definition to production deployment and continuous improvement
• Conduct rigorous benchmarking, validation, and performance evaluation against scientific and business objectives
• Deploy scalable, reliable model inference services meeting latency, throughput, and cost requirements
• Build automated training, retraining, and monitoring pipelines including model drift detection mechanisms
• Optimize models and pipelines for performance, reliability, and scalability across production environments
• Establish and promote engineering best practices for reproducibility, testing, and deployment standards
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to translate research innovations into production-ready AI solutions
• Partner with scientific experts to validate models against biological and chemical benchmarks
• Mentor teams and contribute to raising engineering excellence across the AI for Research organization

Essential Requirements

• Minimum four years of experience building, training, and deploying machine learning models with measurable real-world impact
• Deep proficiency in Python and frameworks such as PyTorch or JAX; expertise in model design and optimization
• Proven experience fine-tuning and deploying large pre-trained and foundation models including language and scientific models
• Strong understanding of model evaluation including benchmarking, cross-validation, and performance across data distributions
• Experience with distributed training and large-scale computing environments for high-performance model training
• Hands-on expertise optimizing models and pipelines for latency, throughput, cost, and production performance
• Experience with MLOps practices including experiment tracking, model versioning, reproducibility, and cloud deployment
• Strong problem-solving, collaboration, and communication skills with ability to drive engineering excellence in complex environments

Novartis Compensation and Benefit Summary

The salary for this position is expected to range between 1,38,600.00 - 2,57,400.00 USD Annual.

The final salary offered is determined based on factors such as relevant skills and experience and will be reviewed periodically upon joining Novartis. Novartis may update the published salary range based on company and market factors.

Your compensation will include a performance-based cash incentive and, depending on the level of the role, eligibility for annual equity awards.

US-based eligible associates receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes health, life, and disability coverage, a 401(k) plan with company contribution and matching, and a range of additional benefits. Associates are also eligible for a generous time-off package, including vacation, personal days, holidays, and other leave options. To learn more about the culture, rewards and benefits we offer our people click here.

EEO Statement:

The Novartis Group of Companies are Equal Opportunity Employers. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Accessibility and reasonable accommodations

The Novartis Group of Companies are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an e-mail to us.reasonableaccommodations@novartis.com or call +1(877)395-2339 and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message.

Salary Range

$138,600.00 - $257,400.00

Skills Desired

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Biostatistics, Change Management, Curious Mindset, Data Governance, Data Literacy, Data Quality, Data Science, Data Visualization, Deep Learning, Graph Algorithms, Learning Agility, Logistic Regression Model (Inactive), Machine Learning (ML), Machine Learning Algorithms, Nlp (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) And Genai (Inactive), Pandas (Python) (Inactive), Python (Programming Language), R Programming, Stakeholder Engagement, Statistical Analysis, Structured Query Language (SQL), Time Series Analysis