Roche's Research and Early Development organisations at Genentech (gRED) and Pharma (pRED) have ... You act as a technical mentor to junior staff and interns, fostering a culture of engineering ...
Roche's Research and Early Development organisations at Genentech (gRED) and Pharma (pRED) have ... You act as a technical mentor to junior staff and interns, fostering a culture of engineering ...
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer
San Francisco, CA · On-site
$175K - $270K/yr
... engineering (not including internships) (Mandatory) Built products at early-stage or high-growth ... Real impact: Our platform is used daily by world-class researchers at J&J, Roche, Eli Lilly ...
Quick apply
Senior/Staff Full Stack Engineer
San Francisco, CA · On-site
$175K - $270K/yr
... engineering (not including internships) (Mandatory) Built products at early-stage or high-growth ... Real impact: Our platform is used daily by world-class researchers at J&J, Roche, Eli Lilly ...
Internship Roche Engineering information

Senior / Principal Machine Learning Scientist, Scientific Reasoning Models, AI for Drug Discovery
South San Francisco, CA
Full-time
Re-posted 29 days ago
Genentech rating
8.8
Based on 22 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz
11th of 86 rated pharmaceutical
Job description
A healthier future. It's what drives us to innovate. To continuously advance science and ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need today and for generations to come. Creating a world where we all have more time with the people we love. That's what makes us Roche.
Advances in AI, data, and computational sciences are transforming drug discovery and development. Roche's Research and Early Development organisations at Genentech (gRED) and Pharma (pRED) have demonstrated how these technologies accelerate R&D, leveraging data and novel computational models to drive impact. Seamless data sharing and access to models across gRED and pRED are essential to maximising these opportunities. The new Computational Sciences Center of Excellence (CoE) is a strategic, unified group whose goal is to harness the transformative power of data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to assist our scientists in both pRED and gRED to deliver more innovative and transformative medicines for patients worldwide.
The Opportunity
At Roche's AI for Drug Discovery (AIDD) group (Prescient Design), we are revolutionizing drug discovery with cutting-edge machine learning (ML) techniques. We are seeking a Senior or Principal Machine Learning Scientist to join the Foundation Models team within Prescient Design (gRED). In this role, you will drive the development of our internal reasoning Large Language Models (LLMs) and enable it to succeed at drug discovery tasks, including biomolecular design. You will work at the intersection of engineering and research, designing and scaling large machine learning systems.
In this role, you will:
Technical Leadership & Strategy: Lead the design and evolution of scientific reasoning systems, setting technical direction for model architectures, training strategies, and evaluation methodologies.
Model Capability & Improvement: Define and execute approaches to systematically improve model performance on scientific tasks, including long-horizon reasoning and complex decision-making.
Domain Translation: Translate biological and chemical domain knowledge into machine learning objectives, training signals, and evaluation criteria, working closely with domain experts.
Scalable Systems & Engineering: Architect and improve large-scale distributed machine learning systems, ensuring robustness, efficiency, and reproducibility across training and evaluation workflows.
Research-to-Production Impact: Partner with researchers and cross-functional teams to move models from research prototypes to production-ready systems that support active discovery programs.
As a Senior ML Scientist:
You are the primary driver of technical implementation for scientific reasoning, translating high-level research goals into robust training code.
You own the end-to-end integrity of large-scale training runs, from data orchestration to the development of rigorous reasoning benchmarks.
You act as a technical mentor to junior staff and interns, fostering a culture of engineering excellence and rapid experimentation.
As a Principal ML Scientist:
You help define the long-term technical roadmap for scientific reasoning models, identifying new opportunities and setting priorities across initiatives.
You architect new initiatives that integrate diverse data modalities, guiding the technical direction of cross-functional projects across gRED.
You serve as a key technical authority for leadership, influencing how Genentech leverages generative AI to solve high-stakes problems in the therapeutic pipeline.
Who you are
PhD in Computer Science, Statistics, Mathematics, Physics, or a related quantitative field.
Experience:
For Senior (SE6): 0 - 2+ years of industry or post-doc experience with a focus on deep learning.
For Principal (SE7): 5+ years of industry or post-PhD experience with a demonstrated track record of technical leadership and project ownership.
LLM Expertise: Extensive experience developing and training large-scale machine learning models, including approaches to improve domain understanding, reasoning capabilities, and model alignment.
Publication Record: A strong history of research excellence at top-tier venues (e.g., NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML).
Engineering: Strong software engineering skills and experience designing and operating large-scale or high-performance machine learning systems.
Preferred
Experience with molecular modalities (e.g., protein sequences, chemical graphs, and structured molecular data) is highly valued but not required.
A public portfolio of research or significant contributions to open-source ML libraries.
A passion for applying frontier AI to drug discovery.
Relocation benefits are NOT available for this job posting
The expected salary range for this position, based on the primary location of San Francisco, is $167,400 - 310,800 of hiring range for the Senior Scientist, and $194,000 - 360,400 for the Principal Scientist. For the primary of location of New York City, $160,100 - 297,300 for the Senior Scientist, and $185,600 - 344,600 for the Principal Scientist. Actual pay will be determined based on experience, qualifications, geographic location, and other job-related factors permitted by law. A discretionary annual bonus may be available based on individual and Company performance. This position also qualifies for the benefits detailed at the link provided below.
Benefits
#ComputationCoE
#tech4lifeComputationalScience
#tech4lifeAI
Genentech is an equal opportunity employer. It is our policy and practice to employ, promote, and otherwise treat any and all employees and applicants on the basis of merit, qualifications, and competence. The company's policy prohibits unlawful discrimination, including but not limited to, discrimination on the basis of Protected Veteran status, individuals with disabilities status, and consistent with all federal, state, or local laws.
If you have a disability and need an accommodation in relation to the online application process, please contact us by completing this form Accommodations for Applicants.
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About Genentech
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A member of the Roche Group, Genentech has been at the forefront of the biotechnology industry for more than 40 years, using human genetic information to develop novel medicines for serious and life-threatening diseases. Genentech has multiple therapies on the market for cancer & other serious illnesses. Please take this opportunity to learn about Genentech where we believe that our employees are our most important asset & are dedicated to remaining a great place to work.
Industry
Scientific research and development services
Company size
10,000+ Employees
Headquarters location
South San Francisco, CA, US
Year founded
1976