Principal Software Engineer (AI)

Radiometer; Woking; Remote; GBP 90,000 - 140,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Healthcare

Paid time off

Job summary

IDBS, a Danaher operating company, is seeking a Principal Software Engineer (AI) to lead production‑grade GenAI capabilities across our platforms. You will work hands‑on and guide teams through POC to early adoption and general release, establishing sustainable AI engineering practices.

Collaborate with data scientists, bioinformaticians, and domain experts to deliver intelligent knowledge extraction, decision support, and workflow automation.

Qualifications

• Designing and deploying LLM-powered capabilities for enterprise data.
• Experience with AI/ML in regulated or life sciences contexts is a plus.
• Ability to translate scientific and business use cases into robust AI designs.

Responsibilities

• Lead delivery of GenAI-enabled platform capabilities across IDBS ecosystems.
• Guide teams from POC to production releases with reliable, scalable AI engineering practices.
• Collaborate with data scientists and domain experts to implement knowledge extraction and decision support.
• Establish engineering patterns, evaluation approaches, and maintainability standards.
• Mentor engineers and influence architectural direction.

Skills

LLM-enabled capabilities

Knowledge extraction

RAG integration

Production AI systems

Mentoring engineers

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or equivalent

Tools

Databricks

AWS

Vector stores

Relational databases

Job description

Bring more to life. At IDBS, one of Danaher’s 15+ operating companies, our work saves lives—and we’re all united by a shared commitment to innovate for tangible impact. IDBS helps BioPharma organizations unlock the potential of AI/ML to improve the lives of patients. As a trusted long‑term partner to 80% of the top 20 global BioPharma companies, IDBS delivers powerful cloud software and services specifically designed to meet the evolving needs of the BioPharma sector. IDBS leverages 35 years of scientific informatics expertise to help organizations design, execute and orchestrate processes, manage, contextualize and structure data and gain valuable insights throughout the product lifecycle, from R&D through manufacturing. Known for its signature IDBS E-WorkBook software, IDBS has extended its flexible, scalable solutions to the IDBS Polar and PIMS cloud platforms to help scientists make smarter decisions with assured confidence in both GxP and non GxP environments.

The Principal Software Engineer (AI) will provide technical leadership in the design and delivery of production‑grade, GenAI‑enabled capabilities across IDBS platforms. The role focuses on applying large language models to real enterprise data: scientific, clinical, and operational to enable AI‑driven discoverability, summarisation, reporting, and decision support. Operating at principal level, you will be hands on, guiding teams through the transition from POC to early adoption and general release and help establish sustainable AI engineering practices across the department. The engineer will collaborate closely with data scientists, bioinformaticians, and domain experts to deliver intelligent solutions for knowledge extraction, decision support, and workflow automation.

In this role, you will have the opportunity to:

• Lead the delivery of AI‑enabled platform capabilities that accelerate insight and decision making across drug discovery, clinical development, and commercial operations.
• Design and productionise scalable GenAI solutions using approaches such as retrieval augmented generation (RAG), MCP‑style integrations, and selectively applied agentic patterns, balancing capability, cost, performance, and trust to deliver measurable value from proof‑of‑concept through early adoption and general release.
• Translate scientific and business use cases into robust AI system designs that integrate cleanly with data platforms, workflows, and APIs.
• Establish engineering best practices for GenAI/LLM applications, including system design patterns, evaluation approaches, reliability, scalability, and maintainability standards across the AI engineering lifecycle.
• Act as a technical leader by mentoring engineers, influencing architectural direction, and driving the successful delivery and adoption of GenAI capabilities across IDBS platforms.

Essential requirements

• Designing, building, and operating LLM-powered capabilities such as document summarisation, retrieval augmented generation (RAG), and question answering over enterprise datasets.
• Developing AI‑ready data foundations, including unstructured data pipelines, metadata extraction and enrichment, and hybrid architectures using vector stores alongside relational databases.
• Proven ability to deploy AI systems into production environments, with effective monitoring of model behaviour, data drift, cost, and latency, and the judgment to make pragmatic trade‑offs for reliability, scalability, and enterprise adoption.
• Establishing robust operational practices, including versioning of prompts, models, and data, and implementing feature flags and controlled rollout strategies for AI capabilities.
• Collaborating effectively with cross‑functional partners (e.g., data science and domain experts), provide technical leadership, and mentor others while driving delivery in complex environments.

Desirable (but not essential)

Experience applying GenAI solutions in life sciences / biopharma contexts, including scientific, clinical, or regulated (GxP‑aligned) environments. Familiarity with building AI capabilities that support knowledge extraction, decision support, and workflow automation across enterprise data ecosystems, including cloud‑based platforms such as Databricks and AWS. Experience defining or contributing to organisational best practices for AI engineering, including evaluation methods, governance, and scalable adoption approaches for generative/agentic AI.

Benefits

IDBS, a Danaher operating company, offers a broad array of comprehensive, competitive benefit programs that add value to our lives.

• health care program
• paid time off
• our programs contribute to life beyond the job

Please read our Applicant Data Privacy Notice carefully here.

Danaher is a leading global life sciences, biotechnology, and diagnostics innovator, helping to solve many of the world’s most important health challenges, ultimately improving quality of life for billions of people today, while setting the foundation for a healthier, more sustainable tomorrow.

The Danaher ecosystem is made up of more than 15 businesses united by a shared commitment to innovate for tangible impact.