Senior Scientist: Synthetic Biology, Molecular engineering, and NGS

Senior Scientist:
Synthetic Biology, Molecular engineering, and NGS

Thousand Oaks, California, United States

Aug 24, 2026

$127,121 - $171,988/year

Scientific

Senior Scientist (5-2) – Synthetic Biology, Molecular Engineering and NGS

Thousand Oaks, CA

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. Amgen is advancing a broad and deep pipeline of medicines to treat cancer, heart disease, inflammatory conditions, rare diseases, and obesity and obesity-related conditions.

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.

Synthetic Biology, Molecular Engineering and NGS

Let’s change the world.

Amgen Protein Therapeutics is seeking a highly motivated Scientist to join our multidisciplinary team in Thousand Oaks, CA. Our group integrates protein engineering and design, synthetic biology, protein chemistry and advanced analytics to develop next-generation biologic therapeutics.

You are a creative, critical thinker with a passion for innovation, with strengths in synthetic biology and molecular engineering. In this role, you will help develop and deploy novel synthetic biology and sequencing workflows that enable rapid and scalable realization of complex protein designs, central to advancing the frontier of therapeutic biologic development in the service of patients.

• Deploy and execute innovative, integrated synthetic biology and NGS capabilities to advance programs in Amgen’s large molecule portfolio.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to enable seamless design-build-test cycles at speed to drive iterative learning at scale.
• Collaborate to translate early-stage ideas into robust, high-throughput experimental workflows, including opportunities to contribute to automation-enabled pipelines.
• Work within and contribute towards the success of a supportive, collaborative team engaging with a deep commitment to excellence in scientific rigor and inquiry, high-quality data generation and documentation, and clear, timely and considerate communication.

What we expect of you:

We recognize that strong candidates may bring different combinations of skills and experiences. The scientific professional we seek is curious, resilient, and motivated to tackle complex biological problems, and will have the experience that aligns with many of these qualifications. If you are excited about this role, we encourage you to apply - even if you don’t meet every qualification listed.

Basic Qualifications

• Doctorate degree (PhD) in Molecular Biology, Synthetic Biology, Biochemistry, or a related field
• Master’s degree and 2 years of scientific experience
• Bachelor’s degree and 4 years of scientific experience

Required Qualifications

• Strong practical and theoretical experience in molecular/synthetic biology.
• Experience in Next Generation Sequencing.
• Demonstrated ability to optimize experiments and troubleshoot molecular biology workflows with a detail-oriented and thoughtful approach.
• Clear communicator and collegial collaborator who can work in teams to achieve excellence in fast-paced, cutting-edge laboratory environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience or exposure to laboratory automation and scripting.
• Laboratory management experience, that may include equipment maintenance, reagent supply, Laboratory Information Management Systems and capacity planning.
• Experience with NGS…