Director - Genomics Data Science

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve.

This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us. Lilly’s RNA Therapeutics group is recruiting an accomplished computational genomics scientist to its Genomics Data Science & AI/ML team. The Director will lead a team of highly capable PhD-level scientists responsible for pipeline-facing genomics analysis of pre-clinical assets and for computational and AI/ML methods development.

They will provide scientific and strategic leadership for the group, bringing additional depth in emerging machine learning and deep learning methods while developing the team’s strong existing bioinformatics and AI/ML talent. The role partners closely with an established, high-performing wet lab genomics team and with scientific leaders and project teams across RNA Therapeutics. The ideal candidate is a scientific leader who measures success by the impact of their team and the scientific growth of the people they lead.

They have a strong track record of applying bioinformatics and machine learning to large-scale genomics data and of translating those insights into decisions that advance pre-clinical programs. They bring current, credible depth in emerging AI/ML approaches for genomics. That depth lets them act as a technical thought partner to experimental and computational scientists already working at the frontier of the field: pressure-testing ideas, connecting the team to new methods, and helping the most promising work scale into portfolio impact.

Applying genomics and bioinformatics to pipeline-facing work is central to this role. Delivering prompt, decision-grade analyses to project teams is as critical to success as computational innovation.

• Oversee the deployment of computational resources to enable drug discovery genomics efforts, such as sequencing-based high-throughput screening Lead, mentor, and grow a team of high-performing PhD-level data scientists
• Help set the team’s computational genomics and AI/ML strategy, aligning priorities with portfolio needs
• Build on the team’s existing AI/ML work, deepening its capability in emerging machine learning and deep learning methods and serving as a technical thought partner on method selection, model design, and evaluation
• Guide the translation of promising computational methods developed within the team into robust, scalable tools that support portfolio decisions
• Champion the adoption of new analytical approaches across RNA Therapeutics
• Foster an environment where team members contribute ideas and are recognized for their work
• Help the team navigate scientific and technical questions where no established precedent exists, and make the call when a decision is needed
• Partner with scientific leaders across RNA Therapeutics to guide the generation of large-scale genomics datasets purpose-designed to train, benchmark, and improve AI/ML models
• Ensure the team delivers rigorous, decision-grade analysis across modalities including 3'-RNA-seq, mRNA-seq, MPRA, single-cell genomics, spatial transcriptomics, CLIP-seq, and Perturb-seq
• Establish standards for reproducibility, quality control, and analytical rigor across the team’s analysis and ML workflows on…