Principal Scientist, Protein Therapeutics – Mammalian Expression & Cell Line Engineering

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. 

Principal Scientist, Protein Therapeutics – Mammalian Expression & Cell Line Engineering 

What you will do 

Let’s do this. Let’s change the world. In this vital role you will join the Protein Therapeutics organization within Research. This role will provide scientific and technical leadership in mammalian expression and cell line engineering to support the discovery and optimization of large-molecule therapeutics, including antibodies, bispecific, and next-generation protein modalities. 

This is a senior individual contributor role with no direct reports. 

The successful candidate will be a recognized technical expert and scientific leader who drives innovation in mammalian expression systems, cell line engineering strategies, and enabling technologies, with a strong emphasis on data-driven decision making and automation-enabled workflows. 

Key Responsibilities 

Scientific Leadership and Innovation 

• Champion innovative approaches in mammalian host cell engineering and mammalian expression to improve productivity, quality, recombinant protein characteristics, and production speed. 

• Serve as a scientific leader and subject matter expert in mammalian expression and cell line engineering, influencing technical strategy across protein therapeutic programs. 

• Identify, develop, and implement new technologies, platforms, and automation solutions that enhance robustness, scalability, and throughput of expression workflows. 

Technical Execution, Data, and Problem Solving 

• Solve high-impact, technically complex problems related to mammalian recombinant protein expression, post-translational modification, stability, and developability. 

• Execute wet laboratory experiments to express therapeutic proteins in mammalian cells both in high throughput bench-scale productions and medium-scale shake flask productions. 

• Apply data-driven approaches to optimize expression systems and processes. 

• Partner closely with informatics and automation teams to enable high-throughput, reproducible, and scalable workflows. 

Collaboration and Influence 

• Provide technical guidance and mentorship to scientists within and outside the department, without direct line management responsibility. 

• Work effectively across functions including protein engineering, molecular biology, analytics, process development, and data sciences to advance programs. 

• Represent the mammalian expression and cell engineering function on project teams, governance forums, and internal scientific reviews. 

External Awareness and Scientific Impact 

• Maintain deep awareness of external scientific and technological advances in mammalian expression, cell engineering, automation, and data-enabled biology. 

• Contribute to Amgen’s scientific reputation through publications, patents, presentations, and participation in internal and external scientific forums. 

• Evaluate and influence external collaborations, technologies, and partnering opportunities as needed. 

What we expect of you 

We are all different, yet we all use our outstanding contributions to serve patients. The Professional we seek is an agile leader with these qualifications. 

Basic Qualifications 

Doctorate degree- PhD, PharmD or MD with relevant postdoctoral and 2 years of cell biology experience 

OR 

Master’s degree and 5 years of cell biology experience 

OR 

Bachelor’s degree and 7 years of cell biology experience 

Preferred Qualifications 

• Ph.D. with significant postdoctoral and/or industry experience in biotech or pharma, with a strong focus on mammalian expression and cell line engineering. 

• Deep expertise in mammalian cell biology, expression construct design, host cell engineering, and expression strategies for a broad range of protein therapeutics. 

• Demonstrated experience implementing data-rich, automated, and high-throughput expression or cell engineering workflows. 

• Strong understanding of how protein sequence, structure, and biophysical properties impact expression, quality attributes, and downstream developability. 

• Proven record of independent scientific achievement, evidenced by high-impact publications, patents, and/or implemented technologies. 

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence without authority and operate effectively in a highly matrixed environment. 

What you can expect of us