Principal Data Innovation Specialist (RWD)

About the role

A healthier future drives us to innovate, continuously advance science, and ensure everyone has access to the healthcare they need. This role is based in the Real-World & Clinical Data Strategy (RWCDS) team, which drives data excellence and analytics to power enhanced decision-making and evidence-generation within Roche Product Development (PD). We develop and implement data strategies that unlock the value of clinical, operational, and real-world data to accelerate evidence generation, decision-making, and innovation. By embedding FAIR principles, advancing data governance, and enabling data productization, RWCDS ensures data is findable, usable, and a driver of scientific rigor, regulatory readiness, and AI-powered transformation.

Responsibilities

• Multi-Agent & AI Development: Prototype, validate, and scale advanced AI capabilities, focusing on multi-agent development and orchestration architectures to unlock complex use cases across product development.
• Core Data Engineering: Lead robust data engineering activities to design, optimize, and streamline data workflows, building scalable data pipelines that integrate unstructured, multi-modal, and unconventional data sources.
• Analytical Project Leadership: Drive innovation activities and lead complex analytical projects focused on exploring novel data types, automated agent-driven workflows, and knowledge graph integrations in a multi-modal environment.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with scientists, engineers, and product teams to pilot data innovations, integrating advanced engineering pipelines and multi-agent frameworks into broader clinical development and data science workflows.
• Platform & Tool Creation: Drive the development of low-/no-code analytics platforms to democratize multi-modal data access and establish frameworks for the scalable evaluation, productization, and reuse of experimental data approaches.
• Subject Matter Expertise & Mentorship: Serve as an innovation methodology expert, guiding peers through new data modalities while mentoring junior team members on cutting-edge techniques, data tools, and agent architectures.
• Compliance & Data Governance: Proactively identify innovation areas via research while ensuring all engineering and AI frameworks maintain absolute compliance with data privacy and security regulations like HIPAA and GDPR.

Requirements

• Educational & Professional Foundation: Master’s or PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or a related field, with 6+ years of experience across data engineering, data science, or healthcare innovation settings.
• AI & Agent Architecture Expertise: Proven success implementing innovation pilots, with deep practical experience in AI-driven analytics, multi-agent architectures, and the application of engineering frameworks in complex research or industry environments.
• Methodological Frameworks: Highly proficient with agile development, product-thinking, and innovation lifecycle frameworks (such as Lean Startup or Design Thinking), alongside experience evaluating new data platforms, APIs, or data partnerships.
• Strategic & Independent Agility: Exceptional critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and independent decision-making capabilities that extend across both technical engineering domains and broader strategic areas.
• Global Communication & Collaboration: Excellent presentation and communication skills to explain complex technical concepts simply, thrive in a culturally diverse global workplace, and actively contribute to internal or external biomedical innovation communities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Exposure to real-world data or research informatics in a biomedical setting.
• Interest in emerging technologies such as machine learning, knowledge graphs, or clinical AI.
• Ability to summarize results for both technical and non-technical audiences.

Pay

The expected salary range for this position based on the primary location of South San Francisco, CA is $140,900.00 - $261,700.00 USD Annual. Actual pay will be determined based on experience, qualifications, geographic location, and other job-related factors permitted by law. A discretionary annual bonus may be available based on individual and Company performance.

Benefits

This position qualifies for the benefits detailed at Genentech’s benefits page.