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Senior Director of Structural Biology

Senior Director of Structural Biology

locationSan Diego, CA, USA
PublishedPublished: 3/15/2025
Leadership / Executive Board
Full Time

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 rich in diversity. 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.

Discovery Biotherapeutics and Leads Discovery and Optimization (DBTx-LDO) is a multidisciplinary group of scientists providing critical molecular discovery, structural, functional, and mechanistic datasets to discover differentiated therapeutics. The Structural Biology team within LDO plays a critical role in enabling high resolution structure determination, rational design and AI/ML enablement, across modalities (small and large molecules) and therapeutic areas. The team works collaboratively across adjacent functions including protein sciences, biophysics, protein engineering, synthetic chemistry and computational chemistry for structure-based design of novel therapeutics.

We seek a Senior Director, who will be accountable for structural biology portfolio oversight, strategic vision setting and cross-geography (San Diego, CA and Lawrenceville, NJ) Structural Biology team management. The ideal candidate will be a passionate and experienced drug discovery scientist, and proven portfolio leader, collaborator, and innovator. This is an on-site role.

Responsibilities will include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Manage and lead state-of-the-art structural biology team of 20+ structural biologists in NJ and CA, both using x-ray crystallography and cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM)
  • Manage cross-site structural biology portfolio across discovery organization for traditional small molecule, degrader, biologic and other therapeutic modalities
  • Close coordination of resources and projects and alignment with cross-departmental protein sciences, biophysics and computation teams to impact drug discovery programs
  • Supervision, mentoring and talent development of multiple PhD scientists and their teams Management of budgets for internal and external data acquisition and working with CROs, key instrumentation including cryo-EM, x-ray generator, automated liquid dispensing and imaging, etc.
  • Developing and implementing strategy for future innovation and methodology, including cryo-EM and related methods, computational needs and capabilities, and automation
  • Effective decision making, prioritization and communication with key stakeholders within DBTx-LDO and beyond, to drive drug discovery across cross-functional teams
  • Foster a culture of transparency, innovation, and collaboration

Qualifications:

  • Passionate and innovative scientist with PhD degree in Structural Biology, Biochemistry, Protein Sciences, Chemistry or related field, with at least 10 years experience in pharmaceutical, biotech or other relevant drug discovery experience
  • Demonstrated management and team leadership experience, with at least 8 years managerial experience and proven ability to collaborate effectively, act decisively and drive team performance
  • A track-record of proven accomplishments in relevant drug discovery including publication record in peer-reviewed journals
  • Passion for learning and advancing structural biology capabilities and drug discovery pipelines, including proactive investigation of new techniques and capabilities, advanced software/hardware and innovative experimental approaches
  • Strong background and deep knowledge of structural biology methods and technology, and high proficiency with protein structure analysis
  • Expertise in protein biochemistry, protein-protein interactions, structure-function relationships and biophysical methods strongly preferred
  • Significant experience working effectively with cross-disciplinary integrated drug discovery teams utilizing structure-based drug design and hit-to-lead activities
  • Expertise with computational methods or experience in collaborating with computational and discovery groups would be advantageous
  • Strong interpersonal, oral and written communication skills, highly effective in interacting with key internal and external stakeholders, and a commitment to working collaboratively across organizational boundaries to solve complex technical issues

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.

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 an inclusive culture, promoting diversity 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 a diverse 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.

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.

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