Java jobs in United Kingdom

AstraZeneca has invested heavily in our strategic synthetic drug modality IT platform as we deliver better, differentiated candidate drugs into trials, faster, expediting the benefit for patients. We have made great strides in creating an ecosystem enabling operational and experimental data capture, and in developing analytics, AI, and ML services for both traditional small molecules and complex modalities that will pave the way for this transformation. The next stage of this journey involves evolving and building out unified scientific data and AI platform compatible with state‑of‑the‑art algorithms and agentic approaches that will accelerate the ability of scientists to produce innovative and novel medicines.

We are seeking an exceptional Product Director - Synthetic Modality Drug Discovery to join our platform leadership team. This role combines deep domain expertise in chemistry and cheminformatics with product leadership, team management, and strategic partnership across R&D and IT organizations.

In Early Science, we have highly skilled scientists generating ideas and performing experiments supporting complex drug discovery projects. Our environment is driven by scientific and technical innovation with a high degree of diversity in workflows, data, vendor solutions and in‑house builds.

As the Product Lead within Augmented Design Make Test Analyse (A-DMTA), you will be responsible for translating R&D scientific needs into valuable technology solutions, line‑managing multi‑disciplinary teams, and driving the adoption of novel AI and agentic approaches to drug discovery. Working alongside R&D scientists, software engineers, informaticians, ML engineers, analysts and architects, this role places you at the intersection of chemistry, data science, and engineering, with the aim of transforming how AstraZeneca discovers new medicines.

You will lead a global team of cheminformaticians and scientific software engineers in our Synthetic Drug Discovery IT platform and perform the following:

• Working with globally distributed R&D teams, understand and translate R&D needs and objectives into a clearly defined roadmap and backlog.
• Shape demand with R&D business partners and R&D product owners, matching platform capabilities with R&D need to optimise delivery times and value.
• Convert demand and backlog into clearly defined multi‑quarter roadmaps that are backed by R&D and IT stakeholders.
• Ensure successful delivery of initiatives through close collaboration with platform engineering directors and team leads.
• Manage, mentor, and coach a high‑performing team building cutting edge cheminformatics, modelling and scientific software solutions.
• Own the drug discovery product and data product implementation roadmap.
• Raise awareness, knowledge and effectiveness, and advocate our platform’s solutions – facilitate adoption and value realised from their development.
• Develop a sound understanding of and oversee the development of enterprise AI‑ready drug discovery data products derived from transactional systems and sources.
• As a platform leadership team member, ensure that the platform joins up into a connected interoperable capability offering a consistent and unified experience for scientific users.
• Stay at the forefront of drug discovery and cheminformatics trends and innovations, bringing external insights from conferences and other sources into the capability.
• Propose technical solutions for complex drug discovery workflows, leading proof of concept efforts with successful high‑value selected for production scale.

• PhD or several years’ experience working in a drug discovery informatics environment.
• Demonstrable understanding of drug discovery processes and software applications.
• Excellent leadership skills in a matrixed environment.
• Line management experience of technical and scientific teams.
• Expertise in Cheminformatics, ML, or a related field and experience working with one of the cheminformatics toolkits.
• Expertise in one or more languages like Python, Java, Node.js.
• Proficiency in data structures and design patterns.
• Experience working with relational and/or NoSQL databases and knowledge of query optimisation techniques.
• Excellent team‑working, verbal, and written communication skills.
• Excellent system‑level design and platform thinking.
• Knowledge of agile and scrum delivery methodologies.

• Experience in chemistry data transformation and harmonization to create chemistry data products and services.
• Familiar with coding best practices including testing, code review, and version control.
• Experience with cloud services and tools.
• Experience ETL tools either generic or cheminformatics‑specific ones.
• Basic understanding of Machine Learning concepts and MLOps.
• Experience with Docker and Kubernetes.
• Experience with GitOps.
• CI/CD experience with some automation tooling like Jenkins, TravisCI, Github actions, etc.

Make a meaningful impact that brings real benefits to society. By applying your knowledge of data, you will help to redefine our industry and ultimately save lives. Work with experts who share a common goal: to accelerate the potential of medicines and the science of tomorrow.

Cambridge UK

Competitive + Excellent Benefits

Are you already imagining yourself joining our team? Good, because we can’t wait to hear from you!

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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: 06-Feb-2026

Closing Date: 27-Feb-2026

Our mission is to build an inclusive and equitable environment. We want people to feel they belong at AstraZeneca and Alexion, starting with our recruitment process. We welcome and consider applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of characteristics. We offer reasonable adjustments/accommodations to help all candidates to perform at their best. If you have a need for any adjustments/accommodations, please complete the section in the application form.