Principal Scientist

At Bristol Myers Squibb, our employees often ask, “Who are you working for?”—a question that fuels collaboration, accountability, and urgency in our work. Our purpose-driven culture inspires us to discover, develop, and deliver innovative medicines to prevail over serious diseases. We offer uniquely interesting and meaningful work, opportunities for growth, and a supportive environment that values inclusion, wellbeing, flexibility, and comprehensive benefits.

This is work that transforms the lives of patients, and the careers of those who do it.

We are seeking an accomplished Principal Scientist to advance antibody engineering initiatives within the Therapeutic Discovery Sciences Department on the Protein Engineering Team in San Diego, California. This is a laboratory-based position intended for a senior individual contributor who will be responsible for designing, executing, and interpreting experiments that inform early-stage research and contribute to the advancement of platform technologies. The successful candidate will also be responsible for developing new tools and reimagining existing technologies to support the creation of next-generation recombinant antibody therapeutics.

In this role, the individual will serve as the antibody engineering lead on discovery project teams, establishing technical direction and strategy for engineering initiatives from conceptualization through lead nomination. The position requires close collaboration with a multidisciplinary team of scientists, with whom platform knowledge, instrumentation, and technical expertise are shared. The individual will also engage regularly with colleagues in antigen design, structural biology, and computational biology.

Success in this role is driven by technical expertise, sound scientific judgment, and the integrity and credibility of one's experimental work.

The ideal candidate will demonstrate strong bench leadership, exercise initiative independently, and perform effectively within a fast-paced, collaborative, and highly matrixed organizational environment.

• Serve as a protein engineering representative on discovery project teams, owning the technical strategy for integrated engineering campaigns from early concept through lead identification, optimization, and nomination.
• Design, execute, and troubleshoot antibody engineering workflows, including affinity maturation, humanization, format conversion, expression, purification, and characterization.
• Engineer and evaluate IgG, Fab, scFv, bispecific, multispecific, and emerging antibody formats.
• Characterize antibodies using SEC, SPR/BLI, and related assays to assess binding and develop ability.
• Partner across Biologics Discovery, Structural Biology, Computational Biology, DMPK, Toxicology, and project teams to advance programs.
• Analyze complex datasets, identify risks, and develop mitigation strategies to guide decisions.
• Evaluate and implement emerging technologies, including AI/ML-enabled antibody design.
• Lead scientific discussions, present findings, and engage with external partners and CROs.
• Author protocols, study reports, and technical documentation to a standard suitable for regulatory submission, and maintain rigorous, timely records in electronic laboratory notebooks.

• Bachelor's Degree with 8+ years of academic / industry experience OR Master's Degree with 6+ years of academic / industry experience OR PhD with 4+ years of academic / industry experience.
• PhD in protein science, structural biology, biochemistry, or related scientific discipline.
• Hands‑on expertise in antibody engineering, including design, expression, purification, and characterization of bispecific and multispecific formats.
• Direct experience with…