2026 Future Talent Program – Associate Scientist, Engineering (Vaccine Commercialization) Full-time

Job Title: Vaccine Commercialization Scientist

The Vaccine Commercialization group within our Manufacturing Labs focuses on late-stage process development, technology transfer, and in-line support of vaccine products. We are seeking motivated scientists and engineers to work under technical direction of a group leader to support development and licensure of novel vaccine candidates and in-line products. In this role, you will be responsible for:

Primary Responsibilities:

• Executing process development in vaccine downstream processing including lab-scale process development and optimization, in-process assay support, and process scale-up/scale-down model development.
• Supporting the hands-on execution of lab-scale experiments and authoring associated technical reports and documents.
• Collaborating with commercial manufacturing teams to support facility start-up activities and provide on-the-floor support for drug substance manufacturing.
• Supporting assignment execution against accelerated, critical-path timelines in a right-first-time manner.
• Authoring and/or reviewing technical documents to support Process Performance Qualification (PPQ) and licensure.
• Participate in and drive organizational excellence practices such as technical standards, process platforms, operational procedures.

Position Qualifications:

• Education Minimum Requirement: BS must be completed by June or July of 2026 in Chemical/Biochemical/Biomedical Engineering, Biotechnology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Structural Biology, or related fields
• Required Experience and Skills: Relevant academic, internship, co-op, or professional experience in a laboratory setting. Excellent oral and written communication skills. Well-developed organizational, record-keeping, and problem-solving skills, with an attention to detail.

Preferred Experience and Skills:

• Hands-on expertise with downstream unit operations (i.e. membrane filtration, chromatography, etc.) and process development for large molecules.
• Ability to understand and execute experiments independently in fulfillment of assigned program objectives in a manner that meets quality and timeline expectations.
• Experience within or collaboration with analytical teams, pilot-scale, and/or manufacturing environment.
• Large molecule drug substance process development, scaling (up and down) and technology transfer.
• Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) awareness or experience.
• Experience authoring technical documentation in support of the following: process performance qualification, risk assessment, control strategy, process comparability reports, and/or regulatory submissions.
• Communication of scientific information through oral presentations and written documents.

The salary range for this role is $70,500.00 – $110,900.00. This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee's position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.