Senior Data Scientist Boston MA

Key Skills

Java Programming, Python Programming, SQL, AWS, Docker, R Programming, PySpark, Lambda, Bash scripting

Job Description

New hires in office-based roles in the US & Puerto Rico will be required, subject to applicable law, to demonstrate that they have been fully vaccinated for COVID-19 or qualify for a medical or religious exemption to this vaccination requirement that can be accommodated without an undue burden to the operation. However, subject to applicable law, employees working in roles that the Company determines require routine collaboration with external stakeholders, such as employees in customer facing commercial or research based roles, will be required to be fully vaccinated as a condition of employment.

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 isolate a compound that is effective against a disease target. Using innovative thinking, state-of-the-art facilities and robust scientific methodology we collaborate to discover the next medical breakthrough.

Become part of a highly cutting edge and innovative Quantitative Biosciences department. Using robust scientific methodology, novel translational models, state-of-the-art instruments, and automated equipment, we engage in multidisciplinary collaborations to discover the next medical breakthrough. We have added new capability enhancements that allow higher-resolution interrogation of novel biology and the molecular mechanism of action of molecules that help advance the best drug candidates in the clinic.

As a Senior Data Scientist within the Quantitative Biosciences Department at Merck, you will lead statistical analyses and implementations of novel data pipelines that enhance our department’s ability to perform early target drug candidate discovery.

You will apply rigorous biostatistical and computational methods to help scientists generate novel and impactful hypotheses for target discovery. The Senior Data Scientist is responsible for providing stakeholders with an in-depth understanding of the data as well as assisting with designing studies, developing computational pipelines, and executing analytical workflows to answer key research questions.

The ideal candidate we are looking for has a strong background in statistical methods and/or machine learning, data analysis and interpretation, and experimentally-generated biological data sources (e.g. genomics, flow cytometry, high content imaging). This is an ideal opportunity for candidates who are intellectually curious and analytically minded. You should be able to effectively and concisely communicate oral and written results to various stakeholders with diverse backgrounds, balance shifting priorities and build strong relationships among multidisciplinary cross-organizational teams.

As a Senior Data Scientist, you will:

• Become part of a creative and flexible team; collaborate and work closely with bench scientists; lead efforts on the experimental design, analysis, and interpretation of study results.
• Collaborate with Oncology, Metabolic Disease, Neuroscience and Infectious Disease discovery teams to develop biological hypotheses for computational interrogation.
• Develop pipelines and novel computational approaches to process and analyze highly multidimensional data such as those generated from CyTOF, CRISPR, Bulk RNASeq, and high-content image-based profiling experiments e.g. cell painting.

You are a strong fit for this role if:

• You have a strong background in statistical methods and/or machine learning.
• You have data analytic proficiency using R or Python
• You are proficient in Data Wrangling and comfortable working with databases
• You understand how to or have demonstrated skills to implement analytical workflows reproducibly (package and library development, Git, Docker, Bash) and at scale (e.g., high performance computing in a Unix/Linux OS environment, or familiar with cloud computing, e.g., AWS).
• You have a track record of producing scientific publications
• You have been involved in research projects in the pharmaceutical early target discovery context
• Understanding of CI/CD tools is a plus

Qualifications/Education:

• PhD in Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, Immunology, Molecular Biology, or Master’s and 2+ years of working experience in computational biology, bioinformatics and machine learning in a pharma, biotech or academic setting.