Data Engineering Lead

Translate user and business needs into product outcomes, technical options, delivery plans and success measures.

Balance speed with quality, maintainability, security, compliance, resilience and total cost of ownership.

Lead delivery across globally distributed teams, including the UK, Chennai, Barcelona and Guadalajara.

Maintain clear technical designs, data definitions, data contracts, AI documentation, runbooks, support models and ownership.

Promote reuse, interoperability and continuous feedback across products and domains.

Experience as a Data Engineering Lead, Software Engineering Lead, Platform Engineering Lead, AI Engineering Lead or equivalent.

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.

Experience with data modelling, batch and streaming pipelines, orchestration, data quality, metadata, lineage, data contracts and observability.

Experience with AWS, Azure or comparable cloud platforms, including CI/CD, infrastructure as code, containers and production operations.

Experience partnering with product, architecture, security, governance, data science and business teams to deliver measurable outcomes.

The ability to make pragmatic architectural decisions and communicate complex technical topics clearly.

Experience coaching engineers and raising engineering standards.

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.

Experience with third normal form, dimensional modelling and star schemas is useful, alongside the judgement to select the right modelling approach for each use case.

Experience in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, clinical research or another regulated industry.

Understanding of drug discovery or scientific data, including Target Identification, design, make, test and analyse.

Experience establishing engineering standards, reference architectures, reusable platforms or internal developer platforms.

Experience with FinOps, platform scalability and sustainable technology delivery.

Experience taking AI or machine learning solutions from experimentation into supported production services.

Experience with data mesh or domain-oriented data products, event-driven architectures, real-time data products, knowledge graphs or graph-based search.

Experience with human-in-the-loop decision support or workflow automation.

A degree or equivalent experience in computer science, engineering, data science or a related discipline.

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.

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.