Senior Director, Knowledge Management & Retrieval Strategy

At Johnson & Johnsonwe believe health is everything. Our strength in healthcare innovation empowers us to build aworld where complex diseases are prevented treated and curedwhere treatments are smarter and less invasive andsolutions are our expertise in Innovative Medicine and MedTech we are uniquely positioned to innovate across the full spectrum of healthcare solutions today to deliver the breakthroughs of tomorrow and profoundly impact health for more at

As guided by Our Credo Johnson & Johnson is responsible to our employees who work with us throughout the world. We provide an inclusive work environment where each person is considered as an individual. At Johnson & Johnson we respect the diversity and dignity of our employees and recognize their merit.

Job Function:

Data Analytics & Computational Sciences

Job Sub Function:

Data Science

Job Category:

People Leader

All Job Posting Locations:

Cambridge Massachusetts United States of America La Jolla California United States of America Spring House Pennsylvania United States of America Titusville New Jersey United States of America

Job Description:

About Innovative Medicine

Our expertise in Innovative Medicine is informed and inspired by patients whose insights fuel our science-based advancements. Visionaries like you work on teams that save lives by developing the medicines of tomorrow.

Join us in developing treatments finding cures and pioneering the path from lab to life while championing patients every step of the way.

Learn more at are seeking a senior leader to define and scale R&D knowledge and retrieval capabilities that power GenAI experiences across R&D.

Reporting to the VP Data Strategy and Products this role will lead the Knowledge Management team spanning Knowledge Graph design and engineering Ontology design and engineering and semantic layer definition to enable governed reusable and AI-ready enterprise knowledge.

This role will operate at the intersection of AI/ML data products data platforms and scientific workflows ensuring that GenAI systems can reliably retrieve reason over and synthesize information from diverse biomedical and operational data sources.

In close partnership with the broader DS&P and JJT (J&J Technology / IT) the leader will define retrieval architectures for agentic AI systems and user-facing applications harmonize data interfaces and ensure scalable governed access to R&D knowledge assets.

The role requires both technical depth and organizational navigation as it bridges GenAI product teams data strategy and products owners and scientific stakeholders.

Knowledge Management Leadership

• Lead and grow a multidisciplinary Knowledge Management organization including Knowledge Graph engineers Ontology engineers/designers and semantic layer practitioners; set vision priorities and ways of working.

• Own the roadmap for R&D knowledge representation (knowledge graph modeling patterns ontology strategy semantic layer standards) aligned to GenAI and R&D outcomes.

• Establish the language identity and sematic consistency of enterprise assets and processes so systems people analytics and AI can operate from shared truth.

• Educate and promote use of standard taxonomies and identifiers across the organization.

• Establish operating mechanisms for quality reuse and stewardship of semantic assets (definitions taxonomies/ontologies entity models metadata) across domains.

• Partner with platform governance and product teams to ensure semantic assets are discoverable versioned and governed and can be consumed through retrieval pipelines and APIs.

• Shape AI-ready data through integration semantics and reusable data productsgrounded in real R&D use cases and outcomes

• Define retrieval strategies supporting agentic AI systems and user-facing GenAI applications.

• Design approaches for semantic retrieval knowledge grounding and contextual data integration across diverse R&D datasets.

• Guide the development of retrieval pipelines that enable reliable question answering reasoning and scientific insight generation.

• Establish best practices for RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) architectures in regulated scientific environments.

• In close partnership with JJT (J&J Technology / IT) harmonize and unify access to enterprise data assets.

• Partner with DS&P Data Products & Governance team on defining standards for data interfaces and retrieval APIs that support GenAI applications.

• Ensure alignment between GenAI product requirements and enterprise data infrastructure strategy.

• Act as a bridge between R&D data users GenAI product teams and platform owners.

• Partner with DSH & JJT (J&J Technology / IT) on Identifying and curating high-value knowledge sources across discovery development clinical and regulatory domains.

• Partner with DS&P Data Products & Governance team & JJT to define data strategies for integrating structured data documents knowledge graphs and scientific literature.

• Establish principles for data provenance traceability and governance in AI-assisted scientific workflows.

• Work closely with:

  • GenAI product teams

  • R&D Data Science groups

  • JJIT platform and architecture teams

  • Scientific domain experts

  • Partners in R&D TAs and functions

• Translate data needs of complex scientific workflows into data access and retrieval architectures.

• Ensure that retrieval systems meet standards for:

  • reproducibility

  • traceability

  • auditability

  • responsible AI use in regulated environments.

• Formal training and experience in life sciences biomedical research or pharmaceutical R&D.

• Proven experience leading and developing high-performing technical teams including hiring coaching and setting performance expectations.

• Demonstrated success driving cross-functional programs that align product platform and governance stakeholders around shared roadmaps and measurable outcomes.

• Advanced degree in computer science data science computational biology bioinformatics or related field.

• Deep experience designing data architectures or knowledge systems supporting AI/ML applications.

• Strong understanding of information retrieval semantic search and RAG architectures.

• Experience working with large-scale enterprise data platforms.

• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across technical scientific and platform teams.

• Familiarity with scientific data modalities (omics clinical data literature regulatory documents).

• Experience building knowledge graphs or R&D knowledge systems.

• Exposure to GenAI platforms agentic systems and Model Context Protocols (MCPs).

• Hands-on familiarity with ontology engineering semantic modeling practices and knowledge graph development lifecycles in enterprise settings.

• Experience defining or operationalizing a semantic layer (common business/scientific definitions metrics and governed concepts) to improve consistency across data products and analytics/AI use cases.

This role will define how Generative AI systems access and reason over R&D knowledge across R&D. By establishing robust retrieval architectures and aligning with enterprise data platforms this leader will help enable scalable AI capabilities that accelerate scientific discovery and development.

Johnson & Johnson is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race color religion sex sexual orientation gender identity age national origin disability protected veteran status or other characteristics protected by federal state or local law. We actively seek qualified candidates who are protected veterans and individuals with disabilities as defined under VEVRAA and Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Johnson & Johnson is committed to providing an interview process that is inclusive of our applicants needs. If you are an individual with a disability and would like to request an accommodation external applicants please contact us via internal employees contact AskGS to be directed to your accommodation resource.

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Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

Advanced Analytics Budget Management Business Alignment Compliance Management Consulting Critical Thinking Data Analysis Data Privacy Standards Data Quality Data Reporting Data Savvy Data Science Data Visualization Developing Others Digital Fluency Inclusive Leadership Leadership Strategic Thinking

The anticipated base pay range for this position is :

$196000.00 - $342700.00

Additional Description for Pay Transparency:

Subject to the terms of their respective plans employees are eligible to participate in the Companys consolidated retirement plan (pension) and savings plan (401(k)).

This position is eligible to participate in the Companys long-term incentive program.

Subject to the terms of their respective policies and date of hire employees are eligible for the following time off benefits:

Vacation 120 hours per calendar year

Sick time - 40 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Colorado 48 hours per calendar year; for employees who reside in the State of Washington 56 hours per calendar year

Holiday pay including Floating Holidays 13 days per calendar year

Work Personal and Family Time - up to 40 hours per calendar year

Parental Leave 480 hours within one year of the birth/adoption/foster care of a child

Bereavement Leave 240 hours for an immediate family member: 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year

Caregiver Leave 80 hours in a 52-week rolling period10 days

Volunteer Leave 32 hours per calendar year

Military Spouse Time-Off 80 hours per calendar year

For additional general information on Company benefits please go to: - Experience:

Exec