Job Description

Job Title: AI Scientist Specialist

Department: Cognitive AI & Reasoning - Research

Location: London/United Kingdom

Your impact begins here

As AI Scientist Specialist, you will turn scientific questions into AI methods that scientists can use and trust. You will build on existing work, start new initiatives and take proofs of concept and minimum viable products towards reliable operational use. Working within Research & Development, you will connect biology with machine learning, so drug discovery and development teams can act on clear, measurable results that support the research behind treatments for people living with serious chronic diseases.

What you’ll bring

You combine strong technical expertise with the curiosity to understand scientific questions, and you can explain your methods and their limits clearly to colleagues from different disciplines.

• A Bachelor’s degree with 8+ years, a Master’s degree with 6+ years, or a PhD with 3+ years of relevant experience in Computer Science, Machine Learning, Data Science, Bioinformatics or a related quantitative field.
• Experience developing and evaluating AI or machine learning methods through research, experimentation and practical delivery, in academia or industry.
• Strong knowledge of machine learning and relevant AI methods, with the judgement to select and evaluate the right approach for the scientific problem.
• Hands-on Python experience and experience with machine learning frameworks, plus sound software engineering practice: Git, testing, debugging and code reviews.
• The ability to turn research ideas into reproducible proofs of concept or minimum viable products, and to work with engineering and architecture colleagues on further development.
• The ability to translate stakeholders’ needs into actionable technical work.
• Analytical thinking, documentation skills and evidence-based decision-making, with project ownership and a collaborative approach to sharing knowledge.
• Willingness to work from our London office five days a week and to travel to Denmark occasionally.

Useful, but not essential

• An understanding of biology, or experience in bioinformatics or another scientific domain.
• Experience with NLP, Generative AI, Agentic system, frameworks such as PyTorch or Hugging Face, or cloud platforms such as Azure or AWS, depending on the project.

We welcome candidates from pharma, biotech, IT and research institutes.

What you’ll do

In your first three to six months, you will get to know existing solutions and ongoing development, contribute to current delivery and take on a new initiative. From there, you will:

• Translate scientists’ needs into clearly defined technical problems, practical AI approaches and measurable outcomes.
• Design, develop and evaluate machine learning and AI methods for scientific use cases, including Generative AI and NLP where relevant.
• Build reproducible experiments, evaluate model performance and run error analysis to assess quality, accuracy and robustness.
• Develop proofs of concept and minimum viable products, and contribute to existing solutions, working with engineering and architecture colleagues on requirements for deployment.
• Make sure your work meets privacy, security, responsible AI and governance standards, with clear documentation, transparency and traceability.
• Own your projects while contributing to colleagues’ projects, sharing knowledge and building overlapping skills so the team keeps moving.

Who you’ll work with

You will join the AI and Digital Innovation organisation within Research & Development. In R&D, colleagues explore scientific ideas and advance them towards clinical testing, bringing together curiosity, data, technology and collaboration to help meet future health needs.

You will partner with scientists, Data Science, AI Engineering and Digital teams across the R&D value chain. Your team works across the UK and Denmark, in person and online. Projects typically involve two or three colleagues: one leads, the others contribute, and everyone takes the lead on different projects. That way, knowledge is shared and work continues smoothly.

The team values an open, trusting environment and supports you in building independence and taking on more responsibility.

What you can expect here

This role is based in our London office, five days a week, with travel to Denmark about once or twice a year, around five to ten days in total.

You will be trusted to own your work and supported to perform at your best. Leading some projects and contributing to others gives you room to grow your skills, take on greater responsibility and make your voice heard, in a team that shares what it learns.

Start now

Your impact begins today. If you are ready to turn scientific questions into AI that moves drug discovery and development forward, apply for the AI Scientist Specialist role by 11November 2026.

Application Support

We are an equal opportunities employer, and we commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants.  If you're a person with a disability, if you're neurodivergent, and need any adjustments to be made during the application and selection process, please send an email to ZQUK@novonordisk.com. Please include your name, the role you are interested in and the type of adjustment your need.

You do not need to attach a cover letter, but please include a few sentences in your resume or CV about why you are applying. To keep the process efficient and fair, please do not add a photo to your CV.

We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants.