Why choose AstraZeneca Spain?
AstraZeneca Spain is a rising force in our global business. With headquarters in Madrid and our global hub in Barcelona, we’ve become an important international centre of excellence in the fight against critical disease. Boasting vibrant universities and business schools, the Barcelona ecosystem is a place where scientists can thrive. We attract a diverse workforce from across the globe, shining a beacon for innovation in a country that’s committed to clinical development.
We invite you to bring your talents to Barcelona where our respiratory medicine R&D and Global Marketing centre offers opportunities in R&D, IT, Commercial and HR. Or join us in Madrid and shape our growth in our BUs (Respiratory, Oncology & CVRM ), and a range of Corporate functions. Additionally, you can find sales roles throughout the country. Together, we’re contributing to a world-leading pipeline of therapeutics and delivering life-changing medicines to patients.
Who do we look for?
Calling all tech innovators, ownership takers, challenge seekers and proactive collaborators. At AstraZeneca Spain, breakthroughs born in the lab become transformative medicine for the world's most complex diseases. Alongside technical expertise, colleagues have the resilience, energy and collaborative mindset to change lanes, work with different teams and start projects from scratch.
Here, diverse minds and bold disruptors can meaningfully impact the future of healthcare using cutting-edge technology. Whether you join us in Madrid or Barcelona, you can make a tangible impact within a global biopharmaceutical company that invests in your future. Join a talented global team that's powering AstraZeneca to better serve patients every day.
Success Profile
Ready to make an impact in your career? If you're passionate, growth-orientated and a true team player, we'll help you succeed. Here are some of the skills and capabilities we look for.
Diverse collaborators
This is a speak-up culture that values collaboration. You’ll proactively bring your unique perspectives, experiences and skills to the table and seek the same from others. With our international team composition and the need for fast-paced collaboration, you’ll always be building new connections with colleagues.
Cutting-edge innovators
When you join us, you’ll be part of a team that embraces digital technology and data to transform the way we work and the work we do. Every day, you’ll help make history, empowered to ignite your creativity and build something enduring.
Resilient trailblazers
Here, the answers aren’t always available. So, you’ll need to bring a fearless, self-starter mindset to navigate uncharted territories. You’ll harness your ceaseless energy to discover and make the necessary connections with colleagues to shape the future and achieve maximum impact.
Agile movers
Seize ownership and excel with autonomy to enjoy the constant rush of ground-breaking discovery. Your ability to anticipate sudden shifts and adapt swiftly will prove critical as you make your mark in an environment that rewards initiative and resilience.
Responsibilities
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 authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.
Reasons to Join
Thomas Mathisen
There are many things I enjoy when working at AstraZeneca, mainly the Speak up culture, the great colleagues that are in my teams, the great products that AstraZeneca provides to our patients and the challenging conversations I have around our medicines.
Christine Recchio
Working at AstraZeneca has impacted my life in such a positive way. I now have an improved work-life balance through creating my own schedule and time management, I feel a balance that I didn’t have before.
Stephanie Ling
There are a lot of reasons why I enjoy working in AstraZeneca, my colleagues being one of them. My team members and the managers have provided a great deal of guidance in helping me to be more confident in my daily work.
What we offer
We're driven by our shared values of serving people, society and the planet. Our people make this possible, which is why we prioritise diversity, inclusivity, balance and sustainability. Discover what a career at AstraZeneca could mean for you.
An award-winning company
We're passionate about being a great place to work, and 84% of our employees would recommend us as an employer. We've been recognised as a Top Employer in Spain, an EFR Family Responsible Business, and we achieved third place in Forbes Spain's Top 50 Best Places to Work list.
Inclusive environment
Diversity and inclusion are embedded in everything we do, and our different views, experiences and strengths enrich our culture. There's no salary gap at AstraZeneca, and the number of female employees has increased by four per cent over the last three years. We've also made all positions fully accessible.
Work-life balance
Your wellbeing means a lot to us, and we're here to support you through all of life's ups and downs. That's why we offer an unpaid leave policy, annual leave, reduced-hours timetables and a host of benefits, including a retirement plan, long service award, and health and travel insurance.
Sustainability initiatives
We're committed to harnessing the power of science to become a more sustainable business. We've reduced our carbon footprint by over 9,000 kg of CO2 over the last two years, and we lead the European GoGreen Project, which aims to introduce environmentally friendly options in our fleet of corporate vehicles.
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