Senior Scientist Pharma

Senior Scientist – Pharma

The Senior Scientist – Pharma helps provides scientific leadership across the Pharma Program within the LCMS business segment. This role shapes analytical strategy, leads complex experimental initiatives, and delivers high-impact scientific outputs that support Waters' growth objectives and new product development priorities.

As a recognized technical expert, the Senior Scientist applies deep expertise in small and large molecule bioanalysis to develop differentiated, customer-relevant LCMS workflows that address evolving pharmaceutical modalities, regulatory expectations, and laboratory needs.

Scientific Leadership & Innovation

• Acts as a senior technical authority, leading complex scientific work streams across multiple initiatives with minimal guidance.
• Defines experimental strategy and independently designs, executes, and interprets advanced LCMS studies.
• Ensures scientific rigor, robustness, and reproducibility of data generated across the program.
• Evaluates emerging technologies, new modalities, and regulatory developments to guide workflow innovation and technical direction.
• Identifies scientific gaps and proposes novel methodologies that enable differentiated product and workflow positioning.

Cross-Functional Influence & Mentorship

• Serves as a key scientific partner to Product Management, R&D, and Marketing in defining pharma-relevant product requirements.
• Represents the scientific perspective in cross-functional planning, ensuring customer workflows are accurately translated into development priorities.
• Helps mentor and coach scientists at earlier career stages, contributing to capability development and scientific standards across the team.
• Builds strong relationships across the organization to enable effective collaboration and program success.

External Engagement & Thought Leadership

• Authors and leads the development of high-quality scientific content including application notes, workflow documents, white papers, and technical presentations.
• Engages directly with key customers, collaborators, and thought leaders through technical discussions, workshops, and joint evaluations.
• Represents Waters at conferences, webinars, and technical forums, communicating scientific value, innovation, and emerging insights.
• Contributes to Waters' external scientific reputation through visible, credible technical leadership.

Program & Project Execution

• Manages scientific activities across multiple concurrent projects, balancing priorities and ensuring timely, high-quality delivery.
• Provides data-driven recommendations that influence program strategy, product decisions, and investment priorities.
• Ensures alignment of scientific work with relevant regulatory expectations for pharmaceutical bioanalysis.
• Supports evaluation, verification, and validation of new product features against real-world pharma laboratory requirements.

Qualifications

• PhD in life sciences, chemical sciences, physical sciences, or a related discipline strongly preferred; or BSc or MSc with significant relevant experience considered.

Experience

• Typically 3+ years of applied LCMS experience in the pharmaceutical industry or a closely related field.
• Demonstrated expertise in both small and large molecule bioanalysis across discovery, development, and/or regulated environments.
• Strong understanding of pharma market drivers, regulatory expectations, and emerging modalities (e.g., Protacs, peptides, oligonucleotides, ADCs).
• Proven track record of scientific authorship, workflow development, and customer-facing technical contributions.
• Experience with complementary bioanalytical techniques (e.g., flow cytometry) is desirable.

Skills & Capabilities

• Advanced scientific communication and influencing skills, with the ability to tailor messages for technical, commercial, and customer audiences.
• Strong cross-functional collaboration skills and credibility with internal and external stakeholders.
• Strategic scientific thinker with high curiosity and ability to translate insight into actionable direction.
• Excellent planning, prioritization, and execution skills across complex, multi-project environments.
• Analytical mindset with advanced problem-solving and experimental design capability.
• Effective contributor within globally distributed and cross-cultural teams.
• Fluent in English; additional languages are an advantage

Travel Requirement:

• Willingness to travel up to 20% of the time for customer visits, industry events, and team meetings.

Reporting Line:

• Reports directly to the Pharma Program lead within the LCMS Business Segment in the Analytical Sciences Division

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) is a global leader in life sciences and diagnostics, dedicated to accelerating the benefits of pioneering science through analytical technologies, informatics, and service. With a focus on regulated, high-volume testing environments, our innovative portfolio harnesses deep scientific expertise across chemistry, physics, and biology. We…