Executive Director, AI for Discovery at AstraZeneca
Boston, MA
$258,158–$387,236from the description
Aug 9, 2026
Boston, MA
Sep 24, 2026
What this job asks for AI summary
A senior executive role at AstraZeneca leading the enterprise AI strategy for drug discovery across Oncology and BioPharmaceuticals R&D. The position owns a global organization of ~20 direct and indirect reports, partners with Discovery Biology, Chemistry, and Translational Medicine leadership, and drives integration of AI/ML into target identification, compound optimization, and mechanistic modeling. Suited to a PhD-level scientist with deep AI/ML experience in life sciences and a track record of executive-level influence.
Principal level · 10+ years · Doctorate required · Full-time
We read this from the posting text with AI. Skim the description below before ruling yourself out.
How this req sits in the market our data
Rare in this occupation — lead with these, and say what you built with them.
What the occupation pays Median $178,991 (middle half $141,096–$225,584). This posting is about at that midpoint.
Estimated from BLS employment for this occupation and area, per-skill prevalence across our listing corpus, and published wage benchmarks — as of Aug 11, 2026. It is a model, not a headcount.
Why we read it this way (6)
The SOC classification is a genuine judgment call: this role is primarily a people-management and organizational leadership position (managing ~20 reports, setting enterprise strategy, operating at EVP/SVP level), which points to 11-3021. However, the posting also demands deep hands-on scientific expertise in AI/ML and computational biology, making 15-2051 a credible alternative.
The posting states 'Global Locations' with no single city specified; the salary range is quoted in USD and references US-specific benefits, confirming US-based employment, but no specific metro or state is identified.
The degree requirement is PhD, MD, or equivalent — 'equivalent' is listed, but the framing ('PhD, MD, or equivalent in computational, biomedical, chemical, or discovery sciences') reads as a hard gate on doctoral-level credentials; classified as Doctorate.
Skills in this role are primarily scientific/domain capabilities (multimodal data integration, mechanistic modeling, foundation models) rather than discrete software tools. Only concrete named technical capabilities were extracted; generic leadership and soft-skill requirements were omitted per instructions.
The salary figure in the posting appears to contain a formatting artifact ('$258 157,60') — interpreted as $258,157.60 using European-style number formatting, consistent with the upper bound of $387,236.40.
Ignored 2 non-technology phrase(s) as skills (responsibilities/concepts, not named tools): mechanistic modeling, molecular modeling.
Read the full posting
The employer publishes the full description on their own site — read it there ↗. Or sign in to read it here — it's free, and it also lets you track this application.