Staff, Data Engineer

GSK; Bengaluru; On-site; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

GSK is seeking a Staff Data Engineer to own and evolve the governed context layer used by humans and digital workers across Enterprise AI. You will build catalogs, metadata enrichment, and secure access, ensuring machine-readable meaning and robust data lineage for AI pipelines.

This role shapes the data architecture strategy with cloud platforms and IaC, guiding governance and incident resolution across complex data domains.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data engineering with data architecture for production AI/ML at scale
• Hands-on experience building AI-grade data infra: feature stores, vector DBs, pipelines
• Experience creating context/semantic infra (catalogues, glossaries, graphs) for agents
• Experience designing AI agents/LLM-powered data workflows with guardrails and human-in-the-loop controls
• Defined data quality, lineage, governance standards for AI pipelines across domains
• Expert command of cloud data platforms and infrastructure as code

Responsibilities

• Implement and evolve the governed context layer as a product across enterprise data and model outputs
• Build capabilities: cataloguing, metadata enrichment, context design, secure agent access
• Make machine-readable meanings with clear ownership and lineage
• Define architecture standards and shared frameworks for pipelines and AI initiatives
• Set operating model for agent-generated engineering work and escalation processes
• Lead incidents that digital workers cannot resolve, from detection to permanent resolution

Skills

Data engineering

Data architecture

AI systems

Cloud platforms

Governance & security

Engineered data pipelines

LLM workflows

Tools

Databricks

SQL

Python

Vector databases

MCP protocol

Job description

Job Purpose

Enterprise AI (EAI) builds the data foundations that GSK's AI systems depend on. In our operating model, digital workers do the hands‑on data engineering. They generate pipelines, test and deploy them, monitor them in production and remediate failures. Our engineers design the system those digital workers operate in. At the centre of that system is a governed context layer. It makes data, meaning, permissions and history retrievable at the moment they are needed, and sits above our data platforms and beneath every experience and agent built on them. The Staff Data Engineer is accountable for implementing and evolving the governed context layer that humans and digital workers use across EAI, and is EAI's internal authority on data architecture for AI.

Responsibilities

• Implement and evolve the governed context layer as a product: one layer across enterprise knowledge, structured data, business vocabulary and modelled ontologies, queried by humans and digital workers at run time.
• Build the capabilities the layer depends on: reliable cataloguing across structured and unstructured data, AI‑assisted metadata enrichment, context design for each use case, secure agent access over standard protocols such as MCP, and routing across sources.
• Make certified meaning machine‑readable so that every number a digital worker returns resolves to one governed definition, with clear ownership and lineage.
• Define the architecture standards and shared frameworks that digital workers use to generate, test, deploy and monitor pipelines, reducing the integration cost of each new AI initiative.
• Set the operating model for agent‑generated engineering work: what digital workers do autonomously, what requires human approval, how quality is evaluated and how incidents escalates.
• Lead the incidents digital workers cannot resolve, from detection to permanent resolution.

Required skills

• 10+ years in data engineering, including substantial time defining data architecture for production AI or ML systems at significant scale or complexity.
• Deep, hands‑on experience building AI‑grade data infrastructure: feature stores, vector databases, retrieval architectures, streaming data flows and evaluation datasets.
• Experience building context, metadata or semantic infrastructure that AI systems consume, such as catalogues, business glossaries, knowledge graphs or ontologies, exposed to agents over protocols such as MCP.
• Experience designing and operating AI agents or LLM‑powered systems inside data workflows, including evaluation, guardrails and human‑in‑the‑loop controls.
• A track record of defining data quality, lineage and governance standards for AI pipelines, including privacy, consent, PII handling and auditability, adopted across multiple data domains.
• Expert command of cloud data platforms and infrastructure as code, and a record of setting engineering standards that others adopted.

Preferred skills

• Prior Staff, Principal or equivalent experience in an organisation operating a non‑trivial data platform for AI.
• Experience in a regulated industry, such as life sciences, where data integrity and auditability are mandatory.
• Public technical contributions, such as talks, writing or open source, on data architecture for AI, context engineering or agent‑operated data engineering.

#AGTech Skills

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Data Analysis
• Data Architecture Development
• Database Engineering
• Databricks Unified Data Analytics Platform
• Data Engineering
• Data Transformation
• ETL Development
• Machine Learning (ML)
• Python (Programming Language)
• Structured Query Language (SQL)

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale. People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

Inclusion at GSK

As an employer committed to Inclusion, we encourage you to reach out if you need any adjustments during the recruitment process. Please contact our Recruitment Team at [e-mail] to discuss your needs.

We are a global biopharma company with a special purpose – to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together – so we can positively impact the health of billions of people and deliver stronger, more sustainable shareholder returns – as an organisation where people can thrive. Getting ahead means preventing disease as well as treating it, and we aim to impact the health of 2.5 billion people around the world in the next 10 years. Our success absolutely depends on our people. While getting ahead of disease together is about our ambition for patients and shareholders, it’s also about making GSK a place where people can thrive. We want GSK to be a place where people feel inspired, encouraged and challenged to be the best they can be. A place where they can be themselves – feeling welcome, valued and included. Where they can keep growing and look after their wellbeing. So, if you share our ambition, join us at this exciting moment in our journey to get Ahead Together. Find out more on our career site.