Data Engineering Lead

About the Company

Responsibilities

• ● and digital capabilities across Target Identification and discovery through design, make, test and analyse.
• ● This is a hands-on technical leadership role. You will lead multidisciplinary teams delivering trusted data products, analytical products and AI-enabled solutions across the full lifecycle-from discovery and architecture through engineering, deployment, adoption, monitoring and continuous improvement.
• ● Your work will include:
• ● Building discoverable, interoperable and trusted data products for scientific and business users.
• ● Developing AI solutions such as predictive analytics, intelligent search, knowledge assistants, RAG, agentic workflows and automation.
• ● Setting standards for data engineering, APIs, analytics, machine learning and generative AI.
• ● Providing hands-on technical leadership through architecture, design reviews, prototypes, code contributions, performance optimisation and production support.
• ● Improving delivery through Agile, DevOps, DataOps , MLOps and LLMOps practices, automation and self-service capabilities.
• ● Working with product managers, architects, data owners, scientists and stakeholders to prioritise opportunities and deliver measurable outcomes.
• ● Coaching senior engineers and technical leads and promoting responsible, well-governed use of AI.
• ● You will primarily work with our AWS data and analytics ecosystem, while collaborating with teams using Azure. Strong engineering judgement and experience selecting appropriate technologies are essential.
• ● Technical Leadership and Architecture
• ● Define technical direction for data products, analytics platforms and AI-enabled capabilities.
• ● Design secure, scalable, resilient and cost-effective architectures for batch, streaming, event-driven, API and AI workloads.
• ● Establish reusable patterns for data contracts, domain-owned data products, semantic models, metadata, lineage and self-service.
• ● Lead decisions across cloud infrastructure, data storage, processing, orchestration, integration, AI services and application development.
• ● Manage technical debt, platform risks, performance, dependencies and cloud costs.
• ● Ensure solutions meet relevant standards for security, privacy, compliance, validation, resilience, auditability and responsible AI.
• ● Hands-on Engineering
• ● Contribute to production-quality code, prototypes and technical investigations, primarily using Python and SQL.

Requirements

• ● A strong hands-on background building and operating production data, software or AI products in the cloud.
• ● Strong programming and engineering capability in Python and SQL , including testing, code review, debugging, optimisation and production support.
• ● The ability to make pragmatic architectural decisions and communicate complex technical topics clearly.
• ● Relevant Technical Experience
• ● Our environment includes AWS and Azure services, S3, Redshift, Athena, Aurora, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, Starburst, Glue, Lambda, EMR, Spark, dbt , Power BI, GitHub Enterprise and container platforms. Equivalent technologies are equally relevant.
• ● We are particularly interested in experience with:
• ● Data platforms and processing: Lakehouse or warehouse architectures, Spark, SQL transformation, streaming and workflow orchestration.
• ● Software engineering: Python, APIs, microservices, containers, serverless architectures, automated testing and secure development.
• ● Cloud and platform engineering: Terraform or equivalent, CI/CD, secrets management, observability, resilience, automation and cloud cost optimisation.
• ● Data product engineering: Data contracts, semantic layers, metadata, lineage, catalogues, discoverability, interoperability and self-service.
• ● AI engineering: LLM APIs, vector or hybrid search, RAG, prompt and model management, tool integration, evaluation and monitoring.
• ● Analytics and visualisation: Power BI or equivalent tools and scalable, user-centred insight products.
• ● Engineering operations: Service ownership, incident management, reliability engineering and operational readiness.
• ● Understanding of drug discovery or scientific data, including Target Identification, design, make, test and analyse.
• ● A degree or equivalent experience in computer science, engineering, data science or a related discipline.

Benefits

• ● We're a network of entrepreneurial self-starters who contribute to something far bigger. There's a diversity of expertise in our Technology group that's unique to AstraZeneca - it allows us to dive deep into exploring new leading-edge technology. We enable AstraZeneca to perform at its peak by delivering world-class technology and data solutions, unlocking the potential of science. We optimise and evolutionise AstraZeneca by maximising efficiencies and finding new ways to drive productivity. From automation to data simplification.
• ● A place to be open and transparent - we speak up, think creatively and share ideas. Our diverse contributions help us to make better decisions. But we have a constant drive to innovate, and an appreciation for high standards . It takes challenging the status quo to add value in our ever-evolving environment. We love it here because put simply, we make a meaningful impact.
• ● When we put unexpected teams in the same room, we unleash bold thinking with the power to inspire life-changing medicines. In-person working gives us the platform we need to connect, work at pace and challenge perceptions. That's why we work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office. But that doesn't mean we're not flexible. We balance the expectation of being in the office while respecting individual flexibility. Join us in our unique and ambitious world.
• ● Date Posted 01-oct-2026
• ● Closing Date 14-oct-2026
• ● 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.