Software Engineering Lead – Connected Insights

Introduction to role:
Are you ready to disrupt an industry and change lives? The Connected Insights service at AstraZeneca is revolutionizing how competitive intelligence is created, shared, and consumed. By leveraging data pipelines, knowledge graphs, interactive visualizations, and machine learning, we are transforming the experience into a rich, digital, interconnected, and on-demand journey. As a Software Engineering Lead, you will play a pivotal role in driving modern engineering practices and leading a team of dedicated engineers to deliver cutting-edge digital products. Join us in creating an excellent user experience and reliable data solutions that empower our competitive intelligence professionals.

As a Software Engineering Lead, you will oversee the technical delivery of digital products. You will work closely with product leads, scrum masters, and business analysts to develop robust solutions and maintain consistency across our delivery pods. You will also partner with other technical leaders within AstraZeneca to create reusable technical solutions that meet the needs of our Oncology, Biopharmaceuticals, and Alexion users. You will champion agile development practices and help cultivate an exemplary engineering culture. Additionally, you will be involved in hiring, coaching, mentoring, providing feedback, and supporting the career development of software engineers.

Accountabilities:
- Lead teams of software engineers throughout the entire product development lifecycle, from discovery to deployment.
- Drive the technical vision for new products, exploring innovative solutions and technologies that can disrupt the competitive landscape.
- Oversee the design, development, testing, and deployment of software products.
- Collaborate with product managers, designers, engineers, and other stakeholders to ensure alignment of product features with user needs and business goals.
- Select and implement technologies, tools, and methodologies to enhance product development efficiency and quality.
- Participate actively in coding, debugging, and architecting solutions, contributing directly to the software development process.
- Mentor junior engineers, fostering a culture of continuous learning, code quality, and best practices in software development.
- Ensure adherence to standard patterns set by architecture and engineering leadership, guaranteeing consistency and alignment with best practices across IT services.

Essential Skills/Experience:
- Strong leadership skills with a proven track record of managing high-performance engineering teams across geographies.
- Strong experience in one or more of the following areas
- Proficiency in multiple back-end languages (e.g., Java, Python) and JavaScript frameworks, particularly React.
- In-depth knowledge of cloud platforms (AWS preferred) and modern service practices, including service mesh, REST API, GraphQL, and Open Search.
- Experience developing a comprehensive design system in Storybook, collaborating with UX designers to ensure consistent and scalable UI components.
- Strong understanding of API, microservice, and event-driven architectures, with the ability to design, implement, and utilize these effectively.
- Demonstrated capability to implement and standardize consistent testing practices across both front-end and back-end development teams. The candidate must be proficient in using tools like SonarQube and GitHub Copilot, integrating tests within CI/CD pipelines, and utilizing frameworks such as Vitest, Pytest, and Playwright.
- Excellent communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Strong track record of collaborating closely with Product leads to identify optimal solutions to user and technical challenges.
- Demonstrated ability to provide technical leadership, managing globally distributed development teams, offering mentorship, and making informed technical decisions.

Desirable Skills/Experience:
- Experience in collaborating on and contributing to software architecture design, balancing architectural concerns with agile development needs, optimizing system performance, ensuring scalability, and facilitating communication between development and architecture teams.
- Strong experience in leading the use of Infrastructure as Code (IaC) practices with Terraform, ensuring efficient, scalable, and repeatable deployments in cloud environments.
- Competence in driving the adoption of Roadie Backstage to promote self-service capabilities and develop reusable templates, enhancing operational efficiency and accelerating development workflows.
- Awareness of AI, including generative AI, with an understanding of the latest AI trends and the ability to leverage them to identify opportunities within the pharmaceutical industry.

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.

At AstraZeneca, we leverage technology to impact patients' lives directly. Our global organization is driven by purpose—pushing the boundaries of science to discover life-changing medicines. We take pride in our work's impact on the world by combining cutting-edge science with leading digital technology platforms. Here you can innovate freely while being supported by a diverse team committed to making a difference.

Ready to make an impact? Apply now to join our team at AstraZeneca!

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 authorisation and employment eligibility verification requirements.