Principal Scientist – Synthetic Separations

Join Amgen's Mission of Serving Patients

At Amgen, if you feel like you're part of something bigger, it's because you are. Our shared mission—to serve patients living with serious illnesses—drives all that we do.

Since 1980, we've helped pioneer the world of biotech in our fight against the world's toughest diseases. With our focus on four therapeutic areas –Oncology, Inflammation, General Medicine, and Rare Disease– we reach millions of patients each year. As a member of the Amgen team, you'll help make a lasting impact on the lives of patients as we research, manufacture, and deliver innovative medicines to help people live longer, fuller happier lives.

Our award-winning culture is collaborative, innovative, and science based. If you have a passion for challenges and the opportunities that lay within them, you'll thrive as part of the Amgen team. Join us and transform the lives of patients while transforming your career.

What you will do

Let's do this Let's change the world

Amgen is seeking a highly motivated Senior Principal Scientist for their Discovery Analytical Chemistry group in their state-of-the-art research and development facility in Genome Valley, India. 

The Principal Scientist will lead analytical strategy and execution for drug discovery-stage projects, enabling medicinal chemistry and early candidate selection through deep expertise in analytical and separation sciences. This role bridges synthetic and analytical chemistry, ensuring rapid, reliable characterization of novel compounds and intermediates that drive Amgen's small molecule discovery pipeline.

Key Responsibilities:

• The successful candidate will lead and manage the Synthetic Separations group, providing strategic direction, technical leadership, and mentorship to staff while prioritizing workloads, optimizing team performance, and serving as both a people manager and subject matter expert in synthetic separations
• Design and qualify automated workflows enabling rapid turnaround and consistent data quality for purification and analysis of diverse compound libraries.
• Utilization of a diverse set of instruments and technologies, such as (but not limited to) HPLC, SFC, MS, mass-directed purification, and preparative-scale SFC and LC is necessary.
• Lead library purification efforts across multiple scales, ranging from microgram-level purification of screening compounds to hundreds of milligrams for advanced characterization.
• The successful candidate is also expected to assist in research efforts directed at improving process efficiencies, expanding the range of assays and applications, building state-of-the-art analytical capabilities, and improving technologies and infrastructure. 

What we expect of you

We are all different, yet we all use our unique contributions to serve patients. The analytical professional we seek is an emerging Scientist with these qualifications.

Basic Requirements:

Ph.D. in Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, or related field with 8+ years of relevant experience, or M.S. with 12+ years of relevant experience in analytical or discovery chemistry within the biopharmaceutical industry.

Preferred Qualifications:

• PhD in Analytical Chemistry or a related discipline with 8+ years of relevant industry experience in chromatographic analysis and/or purification of small molecules within a pharmaceutical R&D environment.
• Minimum of 5 years in a leadership or people management role.
• Develop, optimize, and implement analytical methods (LC, LC/MS, GC, SFC, NMR, HRMS, and related techniques) for purity assessment, structural confirmation, quantitative analysis, and reaction monitoring of synthetic compounds.
• Develop, optimize, and implement analytical methods (LC, LC/MS, GC, SFC, NMR, etc.) for purity assessment, structural confirmation, and reaction monitoring of synthetic compounds.
• Design, qualify, and maintain high-throughput or automated analytical workflows to support medicinal chemistry cycles.
• Collaborate with cross-functionally digital and automation groups to enable data-driven analytics and AI-supported structure prediction.
• Drive continuous improvement in analytical workflows and laboratory efficiency through process automation and robotics.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Prepare concise, high-quality reports and presentations for internal review and external disclosure.
• Represent Amgen in scientific collaborations, conferences, and publications related to analytical innovations in drug discovery.
• Proficiency in managing multiple priorities and driving results in a dynamic research environment.