Associate Director - Platform Engineer - AI Capabilities

Job Title - Associate Director - Platform Engineer - AI Capabilities

Career Level - F

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business with a primary focus on the discovery, development, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Our purpose as a company is to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medicines and greater efficiency & innovation in healthcare. As science moves forward, technology needs to keep pace. To support this, AstraZeneca continues to grow its world-class IT organization.

The Platform Engineer – AI Capabilities is part of the Data, Analytics, and AI (DAAI) team within the Solution and Service Delivery (SSD) arm of Commercial IT. With a global remit, this team is responsible for the delivery of capabilities that leverage data to drive successful business outcomes. Priorities are centered around the SSD demand portfolio, which is aligned to Global Capability roadmaps.

The Platform Engineer – AI Capabilities is responsible for leading the design, development, testing, and deployment of capabilities that leverage Artificial Intelligence to realize business value. This role is supported by the Platform Engineering Capability Lead and works collaboratively with Platform Engineering colleagues across hub locations and Global Innovation and Technology Center (GITC) sites. This role functions as an individual contributor, but works extensively with others within teams distributed across organizational boundaries and geographic locations.

Accountabilities

• Lead design, development, testing, and deployment activities for AI Capabilities within the DAAI portfolio.
• Maintain deep working knowledge of AI Capabilities in order to continuously improve performance, efficiency, and functionality, and maintain currency.
• Ensure alignment of DAAI platform capabilities to support MLOps operations and workflows.
• Collaborate with Global Capability and Product Engineering colleagues to drive the capability backlog.
• Ensure Platform Engineering solutions align to both Enterprise and Solution Architecture standards and strategy, including those that relate to security, monitoring, governance, and compliance.
• Evaluate new technology products and services, and provide recommendations with regards to fit and prioritization within capability roadmaps.
• Lead, mentor, and coach offshore Platform Engineering teams, in order to drive quality and ensure successful outcomes.
• Maintain partnerships with contract service providers and provide technical oversight of their delivery teams, ensuring adherence to AZ IT and Commercial IT standards.
• Partner with Platform Success colleagues to identify, prioritize, and act upon continuous improvement opportunities.
• Partner with Platform Delivery colleagues to ensure feature releases align to business and functional requirements and adhere to project schedules.
• Provide input into business cases, Request for Proposal (RFP) processes, supplier selection, and evaluation of proposals.
• Serve as an internal consultant for IT and business partners across regions and business areas (Commercial, Medical).
• Maintain expert understanding of and adherence to software engineering processes within AstraZeneca.

Qualifications, Skills, and Experience

Essential

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, or related field.
• 7+ years of experience in a software engineering role.
• 3+ years of experience developing data/analytics capabilities on cloud platforms.
• 1+ year of experience developing solutions that leverage Foundation Models (FMs).
• Understanding of platforms and tools utilized within MLOps workflows (e.g. MLflow, SageMaker).
• Working knowledge of ML frameworks, libraries, and technologies (e.g. Tensorflow, PyTorch).
• Experience with languages/libraries applicable within data/analytics contexts (e.g. Python, PySpark, SQL).
• Expertise in Continuous Integration and Delivery (CI/CD) methods and tools (e.g. Bamboo, Bitbucket, Github).
• Understanding of cloud security principles implemented via identity and access controls.
• Experience working within an Agile/Scrum development methodology.
• Proven experience working with complex integrated systems, using creative and strategic thinking to deliver exceptional results.
• Experience working in a global organization with a complex geographical structure.
• Proven experience developing and managing relationships with 3rd party suppliers.
• Strong interpersonal skills.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Desirable

• Experience working within a DevOps delivery model.
• Experience working in the pharmaceutical, biotech, or healthcare industry.
• Experience working within a commercial domain.
• Proven experience developing solutions using serverless principles and/or infrastructure as code (IaC).
• Understanding of datalake/lakehouse and medallion architecture concepts.
• Experience building and optimizing data pipelines.
• Understanding of a broad range of AWS Services (e.g. IAM, EMR, Glue, S3, Lambda, Athena, MWAA, EC2, RDS).
• Experience with cloud-based data/analytics platforms (e.g. Databricks, Redshift, Snowflake).
• Experience with DevOps tools (e.g. Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes).
• Ability to interpret and communicate technical information into business language.

Key Relationships

Internal (to AZ or team)

External (to AZ)

• Data & AI Global Capability
• Architecture (Enterprise, Solution)
• IGNITE
• Cloud Solutions Engineering
• Platform Engineering
• Product Engineering
• Platform Success
• Platform Delivery

• Platform/software vendors
• Contract service providers

Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.