Senior Application Engineer

Working with Us
Challenging. Meaningful. Life-changing. Those aren’t words that are usually associated with a job. But working at Bristol Myers Squibb is anything but usual. Here, uniquely interesting work happens every day, in every department. From optimizing a production line to the latest breakthroughs in cell therapy, this is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it. You’ll get the chance to grow and thrive through opportunities uncommon in scale and scope, alongside high-achieving teams. Take your career farther than you thought possible.

Bristol Myers Squibb recognizes the importance of balance and flexibility in our work environment. We offer a wide variety of competitive benefits, services and programs that provide our employees with the resources to pursue their goals, both at work and in their personal lives. Read more: careers.bms.com/working-with-us.

Summary:

As a Senior Application Engineer within Bristol Myers Squibb's AI Venture Studio delivery team, you will be a hands-on senior individual contributor responsible for building secure cloud-hosted applications including, but not limited to, agentic AI products and cross functional knowledge and context infrastructure. You will design APIs, services, infrastructure patterns, deployment pipelines, semantic-layer evolution patterns for agent context engineering, and agent runtimes that allow AI Accelerator pods to move quickly without giving up reliability, observability, security, or enterprise alignment.

The role is deeply tied to the AI Accelerator delivery model: six two-week sprints over a 12-week cycle to build, test, validate, and prepare MVPs for scaling in a fully agile model. You will leverage the latest technologies to address pharma-specific unsolved problems across R&D, Commercialization, Manufacturing, and Enabling Functions, where critical context is buried in unstructured knowledge files, multimodal documents and reports, operational records, scientific evidence packages, and other evolving knowledge sources.

BMS is an AWS-first engineering environment for these products, so you will default to AWS-native services and patterns while integrating BMS-preferred AI tools such as LangGraph, FastMCP, OpenSearch, Amazon S3 Vectors, Amazon Neptune, PostgreSQL/RDS, Redis, AWS Fargate, LangSmith, and a variety of approved frontier LLM models and APIs.

This is a role for someone excited to work hands-on with the latest AI tools and frontier technologies, pushing the limits of what technology can do to help BMS discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines.

Key Responsibilities:

Cloud-Native Application and API Engineering:

• Design, build, and operate backend services, APIs, and application components that power AI Accelerator products.

• Develop Python/FastAPI, TypeScript/Node, or similar services that integrate LLM APIs, retrieval systems, workflow engines, and internal enterprise systems.

• Execute AI Accelerator cycles of six two-week sprints over a 12-week cycle by developing, testing, and validating cloud and agentic AI product increments.

• Develop MCP-accessible services that allow approved agents to read, write, search, and maintain structured (e.g. markdown/YAML) knowledge assets.

• Build MCP/FastMCP read-write-search APIs, permissioned knowledge stores, version control, audit trails, access controls, and integrations with AWS-native storage and identity patterns.

• Implement secure application patterns for authn/authz, BMS SSO, BMS Cloud Creds, secrets management, auditability, input validation, and safe service boundaries.

• Partner with frontend engineers to define clean API contracts, streaming response patterns, error handling, and service-level behaviors for AI-powered user experiences.

Agent Runtime, Retrieval, and AWS Platform Patterns:

• Build and host agentic workflows using LangGraph, including workflow state, multi-agent orchestration, tool execution, fan-out/fan-in patterns, and durable checkpoints.

• Develop MCP tool integrations and FastMCP servers that allow agents to use governed enterprise capabilities safely and consistently.

• Implement retrieval, memory, and context services using AWS-aligned data stores such as S3, Athena, PostgreSQL/RDS, ElastiCache/Redis, OpenSearch, Amazon S3 Vectors, and Amazon Neptune.

• Build and evolve the semantic layer for SQL and other natural-language-to-code generating agents, enabling novel analytical questions to be grounded in query history, column values, warehouse context, explicit instructions, memory, and governed data tools.

• Package reusable deployment patterns, starter kits, and golden paths for AWS Fargate, serverless services, containers, and production-adjacent AI applications.

DevOps, Infrastructure, Observability, and Evaluation:

• Create and maintain CI/CD pipelines, environment configuration, automated tests, infrastructure-as-code, and release processes for cloud AI applications.

• Instrument application reliability, latency, cost, usage, tracing, and model/agent behavior using enterprise observability and AI evaluation tools such as LangSmith or similar platforms.

• Embed automated quality gates, security scans, regression tests, structured output validation gates, and responsible AI guardrail checks into delivery pipelines.

• Build sandboxed agent execution environments where code and data can branch together, transformations are recoverable, provenance is preserved, and merge/audit workflows protect shared data assets.

• Demonstrate MVP progress through bi-weekly demos and technical updates, tracking platform performance, reliability, cost, security, and business-value signals to assess readiness for scaling.

• Continuously improve shared platform patterns based on lessons learned across pods, changing enterprise standards, and advances in AI engineering practices.

Collaboration, Enablement, and Technical Leadership:

• Partner with AI Engineers, Data Engineers, Data Scientists, Frontend Engineers, Pod Leads, architects, and product teams to solve complex delivery challenges.

• Continuously refine delivery priorities and technical backlog items based on stakeholder feedback, performance results, sprint reviews, and lessons learned throughout MVP development.

• Help complete MVP transition activities by maturing AI capabilities, adding key features, validating reliability in practice, confirming business value, and assessing production readiness.

• Provide technical coaching through design reviews, code reviews, architecture reviews, incident learning, documentation, and reusable examples.

• Communicate cloud trade-offs clearly, including when to optimize for speed, cost, reliability, compliance, scalability, or long-term maintainability.

Qualifications & Experience:

• Bachelor's or higher degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Science, or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, cloud engineering, platform engineering, or backend application development with increasing responsibility.

• Hands-on experience building cloud-native applications on AWS; familiarity with services such as S3, RDS/PostgreSQL, Athena, ElastiCache/Redis, OpenSearch, Fargate, Lambda, IAM, and VPC patterns.

• Strong proficiency in Python, FastAPI, TypeScript/Node, or comparable backend application frameworks.

• Experience with containers, CI/CD, GitHub-based workflows, automated testing, environment configuration, and infrastructure-as-code such as Terraform, AWS CDK, or CloudFormation.

• Experience building LLM, RAG, or agentic AI applications using frameworks such as LangGraph, LangChain, PydanticAI, Claude Agent SDK, or similar tools.

• Familiarity with MCP/FastMCP, read-write-search APIs, permissioned markdown/YAML stores, vector databases, knowledge graphs, session/state management, structured output validation gates, and evaluation-driven development.

• Experience with SQL, semantic layers, data warehouse context, query history, and systems that translate LLM-derived meaning from unstructured scientific or operational sources into governed data/context layers.

• Experience building sandboxed execution, data branching, provenance, version control, audit, and access-control patterns for agentic or data-intensive applications.

• Practical experience integrating with model providers and a variety of approved frontier LLM models through enterprise AI services such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini, AWS Bedrock, or similar approved channels.

• Effective use of coding agents or AI-assisted development tools such as Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot, or similar tools.

• Excitement for experimenting with the latest AI tools and technologies while turning frontier prototypes into reliable foundations that help discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines.

• Curious and inquisitive mindset, with strong communication skills and comfort operating in fast-moving, cross-functional agile teams.

#AICP

If you come across a role that intrigues you but doesn’t perfectly line up with your resume, we encourage you to apply anyway. You could be one step away from work that will transform your life and career.

Cambridge Crossing: $151,280 - $183,319 Madison - Giralda - NJ - US: $137,530 - $166,654 Princeton - NJ - US: $137,530 - $166,654 Seattle - WA: $151,280 - $183,319

The starting compensation range(s) for this role are listed above for a full-time employee (FTE) basis. Additional incentive cash and stock opportunities (based on eligibility) may be available. The starting pay rate takes into account characteristics of the job, such as required skills, where the job is performed, the employee’s work schedule, job-related knowledge, and experience. Final, individual compensation will be decided based on demonstrated experience. 

Eligibility for specific benefits listed on our careers site may vary based on the job and location. For more on benefits, please visit https://careers.bms.com/life-at-bms/.
 

Benefit offerings are subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable plans in effect at the time and may require enrollment. Our benefits include:

• Health Coverage: Medical, pharmacy, dental, and vision care.

• Wellbeing Support: Programs such as BMS Well-Being Account, BMS Living Life Better, and Employee Assistance Programs (EAP).

• Financial Well-being and Protection: 401(k) plan, short- and long-term disability, life insurance, accident insurance, supplemental health insurance, business travel protection, personal liability protection, identity theft benefit, legal support, and survivor support.

​Work-life benefits include:

Paid Time Off

• US Exempt Employees: flexible time off (unlimited, with manager approval, 11 paid national holidays (not applicable to employees in Phoenix, AZ, Puerto Rico or Rayzebio employees)

• Phoenix, AZ, Puerto Rico and Rayzebio Exempt, Non-Exempt, Hourly Employees: 160 hours annual paid vacation for new hires with manager approval, 11 national holidays, and 3 optional holidays

Based on eligibility*, additional time off for employees may include unlimited paid sick time, up to 2 paid volunteer days per year, summer hours flexibility, leaves of absence for medical, personal, parental, caregiver, bereavement, and military needs and an annual Global Shutdown between Christmas and New Years Day.

All global employees full and part-time who are actively employed at and paid directly by BMS at the end of the calendar year are eligible to take advantage of the Global Shutdown.

*Eligibility Disclosure: The summer hours program is for United States (U.S.) office-based employees due to the unique nature of their work. Summer hours are generally not available for field sales and manufacturing operations and may also be limited for the capability centers. Employees in remote-by-design or lab-based roles may be eligible for summer hours, depending on the nature of their work, and should discuss eligibility with their manager. Employees covered under a collective bargaining agreement should consult that document to determine if they are eligible. Contractors, leased workers and other service providers are not eligible to participate in the program.

Uniquely Interesting Work, Life-changing Careers
With a single vision as inspiring as “Transforming patients’ lives through science™ ”, every BMS employee plays an integral role in work that goes far beyond ordinary. Each of us is empowered to apply our individual talents and unique perspectives in a supportive culture, promoting global participation in clinical trials, while our shared values of passion, innovation, urgency, accountability, inclusion and integrity bring out the highest potential of each of our colleagues.

On-site Protocol

BMS has an occupancy structure that determines where an employee is required to conduct their work. This structure includes site-essential, site-by-design, field-based and remote-by-design jobs. The occupancy type that you are assigned is determined by the nature and responsibilities of your role:

Site-essential roles require 100% of shifts onsite at your assigned facility. Site-by-design roles may be eligible for a hybrid work model with at least 50% onsite at your assigned facility. For these roles, onsite presence is considered an essential job function and is critical to collaboration, innovation, productivity, and a positive Company culture. For field-based and remote-by-design roles the ability to physically travel to visit customers, patients or business partners and to attend meetings on behalf of BMS as directed is an essential job function.

Supporting People with Disabilities

BMS is dedicated to ensuring that people with disabilities can excel through a transparent recruitment process, reasonable workplace accommodations/adjustments and ongoing support in their roles. Applicants can request a reasonable workplace accommodation/adjustment prior to accepting a job offer. If you require reasonable accommodations/adjustments in completing this application, or in any part of the recruitment process, direct your inquiries to adastaffingsupport@bms.com. Visit careers.bms.com/eeo-accessibility to access our complete Equal Employment Opportunity statement.

Candidate Rights

BMS will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records, pursuant to applicable laws in your area.

If you live in or expect to work from Los Angeles County if hired for this position, please visit this page for important additional information: https://careers.bms.com/california-residents/

Data Protection

We will never request payments, financial information, or social security numbers during our application or recruitment process. Learn more about protecting yourself at https://careers.bms.com/fraud-protection.

Any data processed in connection with role applications will be treated in accordance with applicable data privacy policies and regulations.

If you believe that the job posting is missing information required by local law or incorrect in any way, please contact BMS at TAEnablement@bms.com. Please provide the Job Title and Requisition number so we can review. Communications related to your application should not be sent to this email and you will not receive a response. Inquiries related to the status of your application should be directed to Chat with Ripley.

R1602672 : Senior Application Engineer