Hybrid Associate Director, Discovery Informatics

at Johnson & Johnson

• Job title: Associate Director, Discovery Informatics
• Job type: Full Time
• Experience level: Senior
• Salary: $137,000 - $235,750 per year
• Degree requirement: Postgraduate Degree
• Tech skills: ETL, Postgres, Python
• Location requirements: Hybrid, Spring House, United States

About the role

• Associate Director leading scientific technology development for drug discovery at Johnson & Johnson. Focused on peptide and small molecule discovery, mentoring scientists, and delivering tools for informatics capabilities.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor a high-performing team of scientists and engineer-scientists focused on developing scientific technologies for multiple modalities with a focus on peptide and small molecule discovery.
• Team deliverables include, but are not limited to, genAI design pipelines for peptide hit finding, ultra-large virtual screening workflows for small molecules, and end-user applications for molecule design and SAR analysis.
• Define and execute a technical roadmap that advances our in-house informatics capabilities and chemistry-focused data analytics applications.
• Ensure the team delivers robust and roll out-ready tools and platforms to computational non-experts to enable self-service analysis.
• Provide hands-on technical guidance and review.
• Act as cross-functional partner to IT, chemistry, screening, and other wet-lab and in silico discovery groups to align deliverables with research needs, prioritize work, and translate scientific requirements into reliable tools.
• Encourage a culture of scientific rigor, accountability, integrity, collaborative problem solving, and continual learning.
• Manage and mentor junior scientists fostering their development as leading discovery informatics scientists.

Requirements

• Advanced degree (PhD preferred) in Computational Chemistry, Cheminformatics, Bioinformatics, Biophysics, Computer Science with strong domain experience, or related field.
• 8+ years of relevant industry experience in cheminformatics or related scientific technology roles
• Extensive hands-on experience in life science informatics working with large-scale data aggregation, manipulation, integration, mining, and analysis, including structured and unstructured data sources.
• Excellent coding ability (preferably python) plus expertise in databases (e.g., PostGres, Snowflake) and ETL frameworks.
• Solid understanding of drug discovery workflows — chemistry, screening, assay technologies, and common experimental data issues and artifacts.
• Demonstrated ability to ideate, implement, and deliver informatics solutions with measurable impact on portfolio projects.
• Proven track record of partnering cross-functionally with chemists, biologists, screening teams, other in silico scientists and IT to deliver impactful tools and analyses.
• Excellent communication skills, ability to explain technical trade-offs to scientific and non-technical stakeholders.
• Strong commitment to integrity, accountability, and talent development.
• High creativity, curiosity and willingness to continuously learn and adapt in a constantly changing digital landscape.

Benefits

• medical
• dental
• vision
• life insurance
• short- and long-term disability
• business accident insurance
• group legal insurance
• consolidated retirement plan (pension)
• savings plan (401(k))
• Vacation – up to 120 hours per calendar year
• Sick time - up to 40 hours per calendar year
• Holiday pay, including Floating Holidays – up to 13 days per calendar year of Work, Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year