Associate Director - Platform Engineer - AI Capabilities

Company Name: AstraZeneca

Job Title: Associate Director - Platform Engineer - AI Capabilities

About AstraZeneca

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery, development, and commercialization of prescription medicines. Our mission is to push the boundaries of science to deliver life-changing medications and enhance healthcare efficiency and innovation.

Position Overview

The Platform Engineer – AI Capabilities is a vital role within the Data, Analytics, and AI (DAAI) team, part of the Solution and Service Delivery (SSD) division of Commercial IT. This global team is responsible for delivering data-driven capabilities that support successful business outcomes. The focus areas align with the SSD demand portfolio and Global Capability roadmaps.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, testing, and deployment of AI capabilities within the DAAI portfolio.
• Maintain comprehensive knowledge of AI capabilities to improve performance, efficiency, and functionality continuously.
• Ensure alignment with MLOps operations and workflows.
• Collaborate with Global Capability and Product Engineering teams to manage the capability backlog.
• Develop solutions that adhere to Enterprise and Solution Architecture standards, including security, monitoring, governance, and compliance.
• Evaluate and recommend new technology products and services for capability roadmaps.
• Lead, mentor, and coach offshore Platform Engineering teams to ensure quality and successful outcomes.
• Maintain partnerships with contract service providers, ensuring adherence to AZ IT and Commercial IT standards.
• Identify, prioritize, and act on continuous improvement opportunities with Platform Success colleagues.
• Align feature releases with business and functional requirements, adhering to project schedules.
• Contribute to business cases, RFP processes, supplier selection, and proposal evaluation.
• Serve as an internal consultant for IT and business partners across various regions and domains (Commercial, Medical).
• Adhere to AstraZeneca's software engineering processes.

Qualifications, Skills, and Experience

Essential

• Bachelor’s in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field.
• 7+ years in a software engineering role.
• 3+ years developing data/analytics capabilities on cloud platforms.
• 1+ year developing solutions leveraging Foundation Models (FMs).
• Understanding of MLOps workflow tools (e.g., MLflow, SageMaker).
• Proficiency in ML frameworks, libraries, and technologies (e.g., TensorFlow, PyTorch).
• Experience in programming languages/libraries relevant in data/analytics (e.g., Python, PySpark, SQL).
• Expertise in CI/CD methods and tools (e.g., Bamboo, Bitbucket, GitHub).
• Understanding of cloud security principles and identity/access controls.
• Experience in Agile/Scrum development methodologies.
• Proven ability to work with complex integrated systems creatively and strategically.
• Experience in a global organization with a complex geographical structure.
• Proven relationship management with third-party suppliers.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills.

Desirable

• Experience with DevOps delivery models.
• Background in pharmaceutical, biotech, or healthcare industries.
• Experience in commercial domains.
• Proficiency with serverless principles and infrastructure as code (IaC).
• Understanding of datalake/lakehouse and medallion architectures.
• Experience optimizing data pipelines.
• Knowledge of AWS services (e.g., IAM, EMR, Glue, S3, Lambda, Athena, MWAA, EC2, RDS).
• Experience with cloud data/analytics platforms (e.g., Databricks, Redshift, Snowflake).
• Familiarity with DevOps tools (e.g., Terraform, Docker, Kubernetes).
• Ability to translate technical information into business terms.

Key Relationships