Job Description

Summary

Novartis has embraced a bold strategy to drive a company-wide digital transformation. Our objective is to position Novartis as an industry leader by proactively adopting digital technologies that foster innovative approaches to hasten drug discovery and development. By utilizing both internal and external R&D data with the power of data science, predictive models, generative AI, and machine learning, our objective is to identify new targets, create more effective therapeutic molecules, better predict drug pharmacokinetics and safety risks, refine clinical trial design, and significantly shorten development cycles. The Artificial Intelligence and Computational Sciences (AICS) team leads Biomedical Research (BR) in exploring and applying advanced AI and ML methodologies to generate novel drug discovery insights, and to speed and improve drug discovery efficiency whilst focusing on patients’ needs.

AICS partners with drug discovery teams, raises the level of AI expertise across BR and ensures that BR science keeps up with the rapidly evolving ecosystem of AI technologies by connecting with AI leaders in academia and industry.

This role supports the work to create and deploy Agentic Systems throughout BR in collaboration with the AICS and RX teams, BRs data science community and key stakeholders.

About the Role

Key Responsibilities:

Agentic Systems:

• Build, implement, and deploy a cutting-edge and impactful portfolio of Agentic applications with BR drug discovery project teams and drug discovery platforms
• Raise the level of Agentic expertise & capabilities across BR
• Help position AI-aided drug discovery contributions to deliver and support progress of BR’s portfolio, enable new kinds of therapeutic discoveries, shorten cycle times, and increase efficiency.

Collaboration & partnership

• Regularly communicate, engage, align with AICS teams, the broader data science community, and senior scientists.
• Initiate and lead key high-value internal collaborations across BR.
• Help to identify, recommend, and evaluate opportunities for Agentic collaborations across BR
• Provide subject matter expertise, input, and evangelism to the field of AI across BR .

Essential Requirements:

• 4+ years of significant experience in innovation, development, deployment and continuous support of Machine Learning tools and models.
• 2+ years of hands-on experience fine-tuning and prompting large language models (SFT, LoRA, RLHF, ORPO, GRPO, etc.). Experience with pretraining and post-training a plus.
• 2+ year of hands-on experience and knowledge of retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), tool-use agents (e.g. e34wReAct style systems), and orchestration frameworks (e.g. LangChain, LangGraph, CrewAI, etc.).
• Strong understanding and experience using version control systems for developing software (e.g. GitHub, git, subversion, bitbucket, etc.).
• Proficiency in Python and experienced with automated testing, code review, and infrastructure-as-code (Terraform, CloudFormation, etc.).
• Expertise in bringing advanced analytics insights and actions to a large Research organization & deep understanding of Drug development.
• Publications, patents, or open-source contributions that demonstrate innovation agent frameworks or computational drug discovery a plus.
• Deep passion for understanding emerging technologies with pragmatic insight into where those technologies can be integrated into business solutions to meet stakeholder requirements.
• Ability to balance requirements, manage expectations, and drive effective results using a proactive attitude towards identifying and resolving issues.
• Entrepreneurial spirit with can-do, pro-active attitude.
• Strong organizational, problem-solving, and influencing skills and demonstrated track record of exceptional teamwork.

• Excellent interpersonal, communication, and presentation skills.
• Ability to self-start, execute and prioritize well in a highly matrixed environment.

Novartis Compensation Summary:
The salary for this position is expected to range between $132,300 and $245,700 per year.
The final salary offered is determined based on factors like, but not limited to, relevant skills and experience, and upon joining Novartis will be reviewed periodically. Novartis may 
change 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 to be considered for annual equity awards.
US-based eligible employees will receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes health, life and disability benefits, a 401(k) with company contribution and match, and 
a variety of other benefits. In addition, employees are eligible for a generous time off package including vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves.
To learn more about the culture, rewards and benefits we offer our people click here

Why Novartis: Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together?

Benefits and Rewards: Read our handbook to learn about all the ways we’ll help you thrive personally and professionally:

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 & 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 [email protected] 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.

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