Lead AI & Data Engineer – APD Platform

AstraZeneca GmbH; Barcelona; Híbrido; EUR 90.000 - 120.000; Jornada completa

Descripción de la vacante

AstraZeneca is seeking a Lead AI & Data Engineer in Barcelona to drive production-ready data and AI capabilities for the APD Platform. You will lead hands-on engineering, collaborate with data scientists, software engineers, and business partners, and ensure scalable, secure data solutions across R&D IT.

You will mentor engineers, promote best practices, and contribute to architecture decisions aligned with platform strategy while delivering high impact data-driven analytics and AI applications.

Formación

• Substantial experience in data engineering, AI engineering, or software engineering with leadership in production-quality solutions.
• Strong programming with Python and SQL, data modelling, APIs, version control, automated testing, and best practices in software development.
• Experience designing data pipelines or platforms using cloud services across storage, compute, databases, analytics, identity, and monitoring.
• Understanding of ML engineering and MLOps, including model deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Familiarity with CI/CD, IaC, containerisation, observability, and agile delivery; Spark, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Git workflows are a plus.

Responsabilidades

• Design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain production-grade data and AI engineering solutions for the APD Platform.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to define requirements and deliver scalable, maintainable, observable solutions.
• Prepare, transform, and govern data from structured and unstructured sources with quality controls.
• Contribute to ML/AI solution development, including model deployment, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Implement CI/CD, IaC, containerisation, and monitoring; promote reusable patterns and standards.
• Provide technical leadership, architectural guidance, and mentoring across the APD Platform Data & AI team.

Conocimientos

Data engineering

AI engineering

Software engineering

Python

SQL

Data modelling

APIs

Version control

Automated testing

CI/CD

Educación

Degree in CS/Engineering/Data science

Herramientas

Spark

Docker

Kubernetes

Terraform

Git-based workflows

Snowflake

AWS Glue

Descripción del empleo

About the role

Are you ready to power the business to have a bigger impact on patients' lives? Embrace the novel opportunity to work at a business that puts patients first. In Early Science, we have highly skilled scientists in our labs who experiment and support complex drug projects. The environment is driven by scientific and technical innovation with a high level of diversity in workflows, data, and vendors. The Accelerated Pharmaceutical Development (APD) platform drives digitization in two business areas, cutting across both complex synthetic modalities & biologics, that combined deliver AstraZeneca’s chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) which are crucial activities when developing new pharmaceutical products.

AstraZeneca’sR&D ITorganisation is seeking aLead AI & Data Engineer to join theAPD Platform Data & AI team in Barcelona. This senior individual-contributor role will provide hands‑on technical leadership while supporting the design, development, and operation of scalable data and artificial intelligence capabilities that enable research and development teams to access, manage, analyse, and derive value from trusted data.

As part of the APD Platform, you will work with data engineers, AI specialists, software engineers, architects, product managers, scientists, and business stakeholders to deliver secure, reliable, and reusable platform capabilities. You will contribute to solutions that support data-driven decision-making, advanced analytics, machine learning, and emerging AI use cases across the R&D organisation.

Key responsibilities

• You will design, develop, test, deploy, and maintain production-quality data and AI engineering solutions for theAPD Platform. This will include developing data pipelines, data products, analytical services, machine learning capabilities, and AI-enabled applications that meet business, scientific, quality, security, privacy, and regulatory requirements.
• You will collaborate with stakeholders to understand user needs, define technical requirements, assess implementation options, and deliver solutions that are scalable, maintainable, observable, and fit for purpose. You will contribute to platform architecture, engineering standards, reusable patterns, and technical decisions that support the continued evolution of APD Platform capabilities.
• You will prepare, integrate, transform, and manage data from structured and unstructured sources. You will implement data quality, validation, lineage, metadata, access control, and governance measures to help ensure that data is discoverable, reliable, secure, and appropriately managed.
• You will contribute to the development and operationalisation of AI and machine learning solutions, including model deployment, monitoring, evaluation, versioning, and lifecycle management. This may include working with large language models, retrieval-augmented generation, prompt engineering, AI agents, and other generative AI technologies.
• You will apply modern engineering and DevOps practices, including continuous integration and delivery, automated testing, infrastructure as code, containerisation, monitoring, alerting, and incident resolution. You will also contribute to technical documentation, peer reviews, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement across the platform engineering community.
• This role requires strong technical leadership across the APD Platform Data & AI team. You will provide technical direction, guide solution design and architecture, and ensure that engineering decisions align with platform strategy, enterprise standards, and scientific and business priorities.
• You will lead by example through hands‑on engineering, high-quality technical reviews, and clear decision‑making. You will establish and promote reusable patterns, engineering standards, and good practices for data, AI, software delivery, security, reliability, and operational excellence.
• You will mentor engineers, facilitate constructive technical discussions, resolve complex technical challenges, and help teams make pragmatic trade‑offs. You will influence architects, product managers, scientists, vendors, and other engineering teams building alignment and shared accountability for sustainable outcomes.

Essential experience and skills

• You will have substantial experience indata engineering, AI engineering, software engineering, or a closely related discipline, with a track record of providing technical leadership and delivering production-quality solutions in a complex enterprise environment.
• You should have strong programming experience inPythonand/or another modern programming language, together with solid knowledge ofSQL, data modelling, APIs, version control, automated testing, and software development practices.
• You will have experience designing and implementing data pipelines, data products, or data platforms using cloud technologies. Familiarity with one or more major cloud platforms and associated services for storage, compute, databases, analytics, machine learning, identity, and monitoring is expected.
• You should understand machine learning engineering andMLOpsprinciples, including model development workflows, deployment, monitoring, reproducibility, performance evaluation, and responsible lifecycle management. Experiencedeveloping or operationalising AI/ML solutions, including generative AI applications, LLM integration, retrieval‑augmented generation, model evaluation or AI service deployment, would be valuable.
• You will be comfortable with engineering and DevOps practices such asCI/CD, infrastructure as code, containerisation, observability, and agile delivery. Experience with technologies such as Spark, Docker, Kubernetes, Terraform, Git-based workflows, or comparable tools would be beneficial.
• You will be able to communicate complex technical concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical audiences. Collaboration, structured problem‑solving, stakeholder engagement, and the ability to work effectively across multidisciplinary and geographically distributed teams are essential.

Desirable experience

• Experience in thepharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, life sciences, or another highly regulated industry would be beneficial. Knowledge of R&D processes, scientific data, laboratory data, clinical development, real‑world data, or regulated technology environments would also be valuable.
• Additional experience with data governance, privacy, information security, FAIR data principles, responsible AI, knowledge graphs, semantic data models, or scientific computing would be advantageous. Familiarity with platform engineering, enterprise architecture, product‑oriented delivery, or self‑service data and AI platforms would further support success in the role.
• Experience in following technologies is desirable: PowerBI, Startburst, Snowflake, AWS Glue, Terraform, LangChain, LangGraph, LangSmith, FastAPI, Pydantic, Pandas
• A degree or equivalent professional experience incomputer science, engineering, data science, mathematics, life sciences, or a related subject is preferred.

What success looks like

Success in this role will mean delivering reliable, secure, and reusable data and AI capabilities for theAPD Platformthat are adopted by R&D teams and provide measurable value.

You will help improve the accessibility, quality, governance, and usability of R&D data while enabling the secure and scalable use of AI. You will also help strengthen engineering standards, accelerate delivery through automation and reusable patterns, and build trusted relationships with scientific, business, and technology stakeholders.

Why AstraZeneca

At AstraZeneca, technology and data are central to our ambition to transform the future of healthcare. WithinR&D IT and the APD Platform, you will have the opportunity to work on meaningful technical and scientific challenges, collaborate with experts across disciplines, and contribute to solutions that support the discovery and development of medicines for patients worldwide.

We are committed to creating an inclusive environment where diverse perspectives are valued and everyone can contribute, develop, and thrive.

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

08-sept-2026

Closing Date

22-sept-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.