Senior Data Engineer

Department - Data & Analytics, R&D IT

R&D IT is a global IT capability supporting Drug Research, Drug Development, Product & Portfolio Strategy, Medical Affairs, Finance, HR, Compliance, Legal, and Global Business Services. We are organised around seven key capability areas: Business Partnering, Solution Delivery, Architecture, Application Support, Data & Analytics, and Change & Operations - with colleagues based across the US, UK, Sweden, India, and Mexico.

The Data & Analytics team provides technical support for the analytics, data, and insight services that are central to the Data and AI/ML strategy of R&D Science IT and AstraZeneca. The team is organised into groups specialising in Information Architecture, Data Engineering, Visual Engineering, Knowledge Management, Data Science, Data Analysis, and Information Governance.

We have taken on a meaningful goal: helping to transform antibody discovery at AstraZeneca by significantly shortening the time it takes to identify a clinical candidate, supported by world-class technology and advanced data and AI capabilities.

Role

As a Senior Data Engineer on the Drug Development Data Platform (3DP), you'll contribute to solution development and testing, offer technical guidance, and share responsibility for delivery. This is a partially business-facing role, so your communication and technical skills are equally valued - you'll be helping to set expectations, share progress, and build relationships with stakeholders.

You'll bring a broad range of knowledge and experience across data and analytics, working almost exclusively on our AWS data platform. You'll join a team responsible for key systems that make clinical trial data available to stakeholders through scalable, cloud-based ETLs managed via a web application.

You'll be part of a team of engineers who work closely with IT colleagues across Mexico, Spain, India, Poland, and the UK. You'll serve as a technical point of reference within the team, and a collaborative delivery approach will help you thrive. We generally favour Agile, though we choose the best-fit approach for each team and set of stakeholders, so familiarity with a range of delivery methods is welcome. You'll offer technical guidance throughout our software development lifecycle - from early concept development through to identifying opportunities to reduce operating costs in existing production services.

Key Accountabilities

• Design, build, enhance, and maintain scalable ETL/ELT pipelines for efficient data ingestion and processing.

• Design, develop, and maintain REST APIs intended for system integration.

• Support stakeholders - including data, design, product, and executive teams - with technical data questions.

• Help keep the AWS base infrastructure well maintained.

• Tune SQL queries and ETL pipelines for performance.

• Identify opportunities for efficiency and automation.

• Investigate data issues, analyse end-to-end pipelines, and partner with users to resolve them.

• Stay current with developments in recent technology and industry practices.

• Maintain and refine a front-end application.

Essential Skills and Experience

• Solid development skills, with practical knowledge of Python, source control (Git), and versioning.

• Experience with big data, ETL, and cloud tools and techniques (we currently use AWS-based Python, Terraform, Glue, S3, SQS, and ECS).

• A mindset oriented toward automated testing.

• Good hands-on experience within the AWS ecosystem.

• A DevOps-first approach, with extensive experience using GitHub / GitHub Actions (or similar tools).

• SQL experience (PostgreSQL preferred).

• Experience triaging and resolving tickets.

• Experience working within a globally distributed team.

• Ability to design and document development best practices.

• Good experience in API design (documentation, REST, etc.).

• Solid analytical and data manipulation skills.

• Experience providing technical guidance within data and analytics teams.

• Great interpersonal skills and a collaborative approach to delivery.

• Comfortable partnering with, and building trusted relationships with, business colleagues.

• Some exposure to front-end development and JavaScript/TypeScript, with a stronger focus on data and backend work.

Desirable Skills and Experience

• Familiarity with Agile practices, using tools such as Jira.

• Experience with visualisation technologies (we focus on Power BI).

• A good understanding of AI code-generation opportunities, capabilities, and limitations.

• Experience with Terraform (IaC).

• Experience with Iceberg, Glue, and/or Hive.