Senior MLOps Platform Engineer

Overview Do you have expertise in, and passion for, AI? Would you like to apply your expertise to impact a company that follows the science and turns ideas into life changing medicines? If so, AstraZeneca might be the one for you About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven BioPharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialization of prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious diseases. But we're more than one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. At AstraZeneca we're dedicated to being a Great Place to Work. Where you are empowered to push the boundaries of science and unleash your entrepreneurial spirit. There's no better place to make a difference to medicine, patients and society. An inclusive culture that champions diversity and collaboration. Always committed to lifelong learning, growth and development. About Our Enterprise AI Products And Technology Team A place to do important work. We connect across the whole business to power each function to better influence patient outcomes and improve their lives. Impactful and valuable, this is where you come to raise your profile and do good for others. Play an increasingly crucial role in driving disruptive transformation on our journey to becoming a digital and data-led enterprise. Unleash the power of our latest innovations in data, machine learning and technology to turn complex information into life-changing and practical insights. Work in synergy with leading experts in our specialist communities. Here we bring the brightest minds to bear, with access to cutting-edge techniques and the opportunity to be part of novel solutions. It's up to us to drive the outcomes forward, inventing and building, expanding our knowledge to identify the next opportunity. An inclusive team, we bring together diverse areas – different functions as well as external partners. Pooling from an unrivalled source of knowledge, we share, learn and challenge. It powers us to decode business needs and apply our technical know-how to add greater value. Rise to the challenge of shaping the future of an evolving business in the technology space. About The Role The Enterprise AI Products and Technology Team are responsible for building and running the platforms, tooling and infrastructure that powers AstraZeneca's ambition to use AI in every step of the value chain, from discovering new compounds to patient safety systems. We are looking for a Senior MLOps Platform Engineer to join our Enterprise AI Products and Technology Team. What We're Looking For This role requires a senior software engineer with strong platform engineering and DevOps expertise . You'll be working independently across our distributed teams in Barcelona, UK, and Guadalajara (Mexico), so self-motivation and the ability to drive initiatives without close supervision are critical. We are seeking strong software engineers with DevOps expertise first and foremost. Candidates with exceptional software engineering fundamentals who can apply those skills to ML operations are preferred over ML specialists with weaker engineering backgrounds. While exposure to machine learning concepts is beneficial, we prioritize candidates with excellent software engineering fundamentals, extensive Azure platform experience, and a proven track record building and managing orchestrated workflows at scale. If you're a strong engineer who loves building robust, automated platforms and tooling, this role is for you. You will be part of a collaborative team of multidisciplinary engineers and working closely with data science teams, have a chance to create tools, standards and automate commonly used tasks of machine learning product lifecycle. A part of the role is also to increase the capabilities of the platforms team to better suit the data scientist ways of working. Our data science teams undertake major AI initiatives such as clinical trial data analysis, knowledge graph analytics, patient safety systems, deep learning led drug discovery, and software as a medical device systems. As a Senior MLOps Platform Engineer, you have the software engineering mindset towards automation and agility while being able to question and improve the ways of working of data science teams. Key Accountabilities Collaborate with Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers from across the company to understand their challenges and work with them to build the tools/platforms that underpins their research Be a part of a high performing agile team, continuously improving AstraZeneca's Machine Learning development environments, platforms and tooling to better suit data science initiatives Work independently as a senior individual contributor (SME level) driving platform initiatives across distributed teams in Barcelona, UK, and Guadalajara Work closely and collaboratively with internal governance and compliance functions such as Cyber Security and Data Privacy to secure our estate without obstructing end-user productivity Adapt standard machine learning methods to best exploit modern parallel environments (e.g. distributed clusters, multicore SMP, and GPU) Champion a \"production first mindset\" in the data science projects development lifecycle to seamlessly scale exploratory research to production Build and maintain automated orchestration pipelines that enable data science teams to move from experimentation to production efficiently Education BSc/MSc/PhD degree in Computer Science or related quantitative or analytical field Software Engineering & DevOps Demonstrable experience in software engineering and automation leveraging DevOps practices 3+ years of experience building and delivering production-grade software using the Python programming language Strong software engineering fundamentals with a focus on code quality, testing, and maintainability Experience working in Agile teams with continuous integration and deployment practices Extensive hands-on experience with Microsoft Azure platform services and Azure infrastructure (this is a primary requirement) Experience with other cloud platforms (AWS, GCP) is beneficial but Azure expertise is essential Demonstrable experience with Terraform for Infrastructure as Code Proven experience deploying and managing infrastructure and tooling for running Machine Learning or Data Science at scale Demonstrable orchestration background with proven experience building and managing complex workflows, ML/data pipelines, or automated processes In-depth knowledge and experience with at least one orchestration framework (Airflow, Argo, Kubeflow, or similar) - specific framework can be learned if strong orchestration fundamentals are demonstrated Experience with workflow automation, dependency management, pipeline scheduling, and error handling Understanding of DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) concepts and workflow design patterns Proven ability to work independently as a senior individual contributor (SME level) across distributed teams Self-motivated with strong initiative and ability to drive projects without close supervision Experience collaborating with cross-functional teams including data scientists, ML engineers, and security/compliance functions Experience working with internal security standards and frameworks Creative, collaborative, and resilient Highly Desirable Technical Skills: Exposure to classical machine learning concepts and understanding of the ML project lifecycle Prior experience developing and deploying production-grade machine learning products or platforms Experience with CI/CD pipelines and automated testing frameworks Familiarity with monitoring and observability tools for production systems Domain Knowledge Understanding of data science workflows and common challenges in productionizing ML models Experience working in highly regulated industries (pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial services) Knowledge of data privacy and security best practices in ML systems Why join AstraZeneca IT? We\'re a network of entrepreneurial self-starters who contribute to something far bigger. There\'s a diversity of expertise in our Technology group that\'s unique to AstraZeneca – it allows us to dive deep into exploring new leading-edge technology. We enable AstraZeneca to perform at its peak by delivering world-class technology and data solutions. Our work unlocks the potential of science. We optimise and evolutionise AstraZeneca by maximising efficiencies and finding new ways to drive productivity. From automation to data simplification. We\'re not afraid to take ownership and run with it. Empowered with unrivalled freedom. A place to be open and transparent – we speak up, think creatively and share ideas. Our diverse contributions help us to make better decisions. But we have a constant drive to innovate, and an appreciation for high standards. It takes challenging the status quo to add value in our ever-evolving environment. We love it here because put simply, we make a meaningful impact. Technology at AstraZeneca is a home for purposeful disruptors 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 authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements. #J-18808-Ljbffr