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Senior Scientist Jobs in Rochester, MN (NOW HIRING)

Lead Wetland Scientist

Rochester, MN · On-site

$73K - $105.90K/yr

Join a team that has the environment down to a science. Your Opportunity Join a collaborative team focused on ecology and wetland sciences. Work includes wetland delineation, ecological assessments ...

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Rochester, MN · On-site

$102K - $134.70K/yr

Senior Mechanical Engineer - Bloomington or Rochester, MN (Hybrid) SIGN-ON BONUS up to $10K The ... The project clientele includes K-12 Education, Higher Education, Commercial, Health Care, Science ...

Senior Mechanical Engineer

Rochester, MN · Hybrid

$102K - $134.70K/yr

Senior Mechanical Engineer - Bloomington or Rochester, MN (Hybrid) SIGN-ON BONUS up to $10K The ... The project clientele includes K-12 Education, Higher Education, Commercial, Health Care, Science ...

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Showing results 1-20

Senior Scientist information

See Rochester, MN salary details

$67.6K

$112.4K

$167.2K

How much do senior scientist jobs pay per year?

As of May 30, 2026, the average yearly pay for senior scientist in Rochester, MN is $112,368.00, according to ZipRecruiter salary data. Most workers in this role earn between $93,000.00 and $127,100.00 per year, depending on experience, location, and employer.

What Is a Senior Scientist?

A senior scientist is a research professional who oversees a lab or the development of a research project and directs other scientists and assistants to carry out tasks on the project. In an academic setting, your duties and responsibilities also include overseeing doctoral dissertations and teaching classes. As a senior scientist, you can work in many industries outside academia, including the pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and medical products industries. Due to the variety of employment options, your exact duties can change from job to job.

What are the key skills and qualifications needed to thrive as a Senior Scientist, and why are they important?

To thrive as a Senior Scientist, you need advanced expertise in your scientific field, a relevant Ph.D. or equivalent experience, and a strong track record of research accomplishments. Familiarity with laboratory management software, data analysis tools, and often regulatory compliance systems is typically required. Strong leadership, critical thinking, and effective communication skills help you lead teams, collaborate across disciplines, and secure funding. These abilities are crucial for driving innovative research, ensuring rigorous scientific standards, and advancing organizational goals.

How does a Senior Scientist typically contribute to cross-functional project teams?

Senior Scientists play a crucial role in cross-functional teams by providing deep subject-matter expertise, designing experiments, and interpreting complex data to drive project outcomes. They often collaborate closely with research associates, project managers, and professionals from regulatory, quality, and manufacturing departments. Effective communication and the ability to translate scientific findings for non-technical stakeholders are essential aspects of their daily work. This collaborative environment allows Senior Scientists to influence project direction and mentor junior team members while advancing their own leadership skills.

What are Senior Scientists?

Senior Scientists are experienced professionals who lead scientific research projects and teams within organizations such as universities, research institutes, or private companies. They design experiments, analyze data, and interpret results to advance knowledge in their field. Senior Scientists also mentor junior staff, secure research funding, and often publish findings in scientific journals. They typically have advanced degrees (such as a PhD) and years of experience in their area of expertise.

What is the difference between Senior Scientist vs Research Scientist?

AspectSenior ScientistResearch Scientist
Required CredentialsTypically PhD in relevant field, extensive research experienceUsually Master's or PhD, early to mid-career research experience
Work EnvironmentLeads projects, mentors junior staff, collaborates across teamsConducts experiments, data analysis, supports research projects
Employer & Industry UsagePharmaceuticals, biotech, academia, R&D divisionsUniversities, research institutes, industry R&D

In summary, Senior Scientists generally have more experience, leadership responsibilities, and mentorship roles compared to Research Scientists, who focus more on conducting experiments and supporting research activities.

What are the most commonly searched types of Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN? The most popular types of Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN are:
What are popular job titles related to Senior Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN? For Senior Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN, the most frequently searched job titles are:
What job categories do people searching Senior Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN look for? The top searched job categories for Senior Scientist jobs in Rochester, MN are:
What cities near Rochester, MN are hiring for Senior Scientist jobs? Cities near Rochester, MN with the most Senior Scientist job openings:
Infographic showing various Senior Scientist job openings in Rochester, MN as of May 2026, with employment types broken down into 100% Full Time. Highlights an 50% In-person, and 50% Remote job distribution, with an average salary of $112,368 per year, or $54 per hour.
Data Scientist - Research Sovereign AI

Data Scientist - Research Sovereign AI

Mayo Clinic

Rochester, MN • On-site

Full-time

Medical, Dental, Vision, Retirement

Posted yesterday


Mayo Clinic rating

7.8

Company rating: 7.8 out of 10

Based on 672 frontline employees who took The Breakroom Quiz

130th of 864 rated healthcare providers


Job description

Job Description
Data Scientist Foundational Model Science
Position Summary
The Data Scientist for Foundational Model Science is the senior technical leader, and the lead scientist responsible for designing, training, and governing Mayo's multimodal foundational model. This model forms the core intelligence layer used by clinical departments, researchers, agentic workflows, and sovereign AI collaborations. The individual will work as a hands-on architect, model-builder, and researcher while acting as a player-coach, guiding strategy and building a future team.
Key Responsibilities
Scientific & Technical Leadership
  • Design multimodal foundational model architectures integrating signals from imaging, text, waveforms, structured data, graph representations, and temporal embeddings.
  • Develop fusion, alignment, and cross-modal reasoning mechanisms (early fusion, late fusion, token-level fusion, hybrid models).
  • Define and implement methods for grounded clinical reasoning, retrieval-augmented inference, graph-augmented attention, and chain-of-thought verification.
  • Establish protocols for model lifecycle governance, safe update cycles, drift-aware re-training, and provenance tracking.

Hands-On Modeling & Training
  • Train large-scale deep learning models, including multimodal architectures and domain-specific transformer-based systems, on real clinical datasets.
  • Fine-tune and adapt large language models (LLMs) for clinical reasoning, summarization, question answering, agentic behavior, and instruction-following tasks.
  • Build retrieval-augmented pipelines using embeddings, vector stores, graph traversal, and clinically grounded context construction.
  • Develop evaluation methods for reasoning quality, temporal prediction accuracy, multimodal synergy, ablation-based robustness, and counterfactual behavior.
  • Create reference-grounded training datasets, structured reasoning tasks, and multimodal benchmarks to evaluate model performance.
  • Conduct hands-on experimentation with optimization strategies, large-scale distributed training, model quantization, and inference acceleration.
  • Implement uncertainty modeling, selective prediction, abstention mechanisms, and clinically meaningful risk thresholds.
  • Build interpretable reasoning pathways, cross-modal attribution maps, and reference-grounded explanations.

Cross-functional Collaboration
  • Work closely with the Representation team to ensure representation-model alignment.
  • Partner with clinical SMEs to encode domain reasoning into reinforcement learning, preference optimization, or rule-guided behaviors.

Team Leadership
  • Serve as the future founding technical lead of the Foundational Model Science Program.
  • Mentor scientists and engineers and eventually build a specialty modeling team.

Qualifications
Required
  • PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, or related discipline with at least four years of informatics, Artificial Intelligence, data science and/or machine learning.
  • Experience with generative modeling, reasoning models, or multimodal foundation models.
  • Expertise in alignment methods (contrastive learning, RLHF/RLCS, preference optimization).
  • Experience with distributed training, and large-scale compute.

Preferred
  • Experience with clinical or EMR data across multiple modalities.
  • 7+ years experience training deep learning models, including transformers or multimodal architectures.
  • Experience defining evaluation frameworks for reasoning, multimodal synergy, reliability, or fairness.
  • Publications in multimodal learning, foundation models, or reasoning architectures.

About Us
Why Mayo Clinic
Mayo Clinic is top-ranked in more specialties than any other care provider according to U.S. News & World Report. As we work together to put the needs of the patient first, we are also dedicated to our employees, investing in competitive compensation and comprehensive benefit plans - to take care of you and your family, now and in the future. And with continuing education and advancement opportunities at every turn, you can build a long, successful career with Mayo Clinic.
Benefits Highlights
  • Medical: Multiple plan options.
  • Dental: Delta Dental or reimbursement account for flexible coverage.
  • Vision: Affordable plan with national network.
  • Pre-Tax Savings: HSA and FSAs for eligible expenses.
  • Retirement: Competitive retirement package to secure your future.

About the Team
Just as our reputation has spread beyond our Minnesota roots, so have our locations. Today, our employees are located at our three major campuses in Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona, Jacksonville, Florida, Rochester, Minnesota, and at Mayo Clinic Health System campuses throughout Midwestern communities, and at our international locations. Each Mayo Clinic location is a special place where our employees thrive in both their work and personal lives. Learn more about what each unique Mayo Clinic campus has to offer, and where your best fit is.
Equal Opportunity
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, protected veteran status or disability status. Learn more about the "EOE is the Law". Mayo Clinic participates in E-Verify and may provide the Social Security Administration and, if necessary, the Department of Homeland Security with information from each new employee's Form I-9 to confirm work authorization.

What Mayo Clinic employees say

Pay

Benefits

Hours and flexibility

Workplace

Get the full story on Breakroom


Mayo Clinic logo

About Mayo Clinic

Sourced by ZipRecruiter

Mayo Clinic is the largest integrated, not-for-profit medical group practice in the world. We're building the future, one where the best possible care is available to everyone — and more people can heal at home. Our relentless research turns into earlier diagnoses and new cures. That's how we inspire hope in those who need it most. At Mayo Clinic, experts work together to solve the most challenging unmet needs of patients. Our history of innovation dates back almost 150 years, when brothers Will and Charlie Mayo pioneered an integrated, team-based approach to medicine. Today, that trailblazing spirit drives innovations like Mayo Clinic Platform — which powers new technologies to change how care is delivered to all.

Industry

Hospitals

Company size

10,000+ Employees

Headquarters location

Rochester, MN, US

Year founded

1919