$142,500 – $256,500
Listed on Moderna’s own careers site. You apply with them directly — we never stand between you and the employer.
What this role is
Lead the design and execution of high-throughput mammalian cell-surface screening campaigns to optimize viral and bacterial antigens for mRNA vaccines, partnering with computational protein design teams to drive candidates from discovery to the clinic. This role suits a scientist with deep expertise in in vitro selection and directed evolution who is ready to own a core discovery capability and mentor junior researchers.
Our summary, not Moderna’s wording. The full posting is on their site.
What they ask for
Required
- PhD in Immunology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Protein Engineering, or related field
- 5+ years post-PhD experience leading in vitro selection or mammalian cell-surface display
- Demonstrated ability to drive complex screening campaigns end-to-end
- Deep expertise in mammalian display systems and high-throughput selection strategies
- Strong working knowledge of computational, structure-based, or AI-driven protein design workflows
- Scientific independence and ownership consistent with Principal Scientist role
Nice to have
- Expertise with glycoprotein antigen expression and engineering including folding, trafficking, cleavage, stability, and glycan impacts
- Strong capabilities in library design and construction including site-saturation, combinatorial, error-prone approaches, and DNA assembly
- Experience with NGS-based readouts and quantitative enrichment analysis