Platform Engineer II

The Onyx Research Data Tech organization is GSK’s Research data ecosystem which has the capability to bring together, analyze, and power the exploration of data at scale. We partner with scientists across GSK to define and understand their challenges and develop tailored solutions that meet their needs. The goal is to ensure scientists have the right data and insights when they need it to give them a better starting point for and accelerate medical discovery. Ultimately, this helps us get ahead of disease in more predictive and powerful ways.

Onyx is a full-stack shop consisting of product and portfolio leadership, data engineering, infrastructure and DevOps, data / metadata / knowledge platforms, and AI/ML and analysis platforms, all geared toward:​

• Building a next-generation, metadata- and automation-driven data experience for GSK’s scientists, engineers, and decision-makers, increasing productivity and reducing time spent on “data mechanics”​
• Providing best-in-class AI/ML and data analysis environments to accelerate our predictive capabilities and attract top-tier talent​
• Aggressively engineering our data at scale, as one unified asset, to unlock the value of our unique collection of data and predictions in real-time​

John spotlight on recruitment GSK Onyx

Purpose of Onyx

A Senior Engineer is a leading technical contributor who can consistently take a poorly defined business or technical problem, work it to a well-defined problem/specification, and execute on it at a high level. They have a strong focus on metrics, both for the impact of their work and for its inner workings/operations. They are a model for the team on best practices for software development in general (and their specialization in particular), including code quality, documentation, DevOps practices, and testing, and consistently mentor junior members of the team. They ensure the robustness of our services and serve as an escalation point in the operation of existing services, pipelines, and workflows.

A Senior Engineer should be deeply familiar with the tools of their specialization and of their customers and engaged with the open source community surrounding them – potentially, even to the level of contributing pull requests.

In this role, you will

• Lead the design, development, and implementation of scalable APIs that meet the requirements of internal and external stakeholders. Ensure APIs are secure, efficient, and user-friendly, following industry best practices and standards.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to identify API requirements and provide technical guidance. Integrate APIs with systems and platforms for seamless data exchange and enhanced system functionality.
• Produces well-engineered software, including appropriate automated test suites, technical documentation, and operational strategy.
• Diverse problem solver who surfaces opportunities to reuse modular code and develop microservices to drive efficiencies.
• Provides input into the roadmaps of teams representing upstream dependencies to help improve the overall program of work.
• Ensure consistent application of platform abstractions to ensure quality and consistency with respect to logging and lineage.
• Fully versed in coding best practices and ways of working and participates in code reviews and partnering to improve the team’s standards.
• Adhere to QMS framework and CI/CD best practices and helps to guide improvements to them that improve ways of working.
• Stay updated on emerging API technologies, trends, and best practices. Identify areas for improvement in API architecture, performance, and development. Mentor and guide junior engineers, supporting their growth

Why you?

Qualifications & Skills:

We are looking for professionals with these required skills to achieve our goals: 

• Bachelors’ degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or related discipline.
• Experience in industry within software engineering.
• Cloud experience (e.g., AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, Kubernetes), including infrastructure-as-code
• Application experience of CI/CD implementations using git and a common CI/CD stack (e.g. Jenkins, CircleCI, GitLab, Azure DevOps)
• Up-to-date knowledge of security practices, standards, and protocols related to API development.
• Deep knowledge and use of at least one common programming language: e.g., Python, Scala, Java, including toolchains for documentation, testing, and operations/observability.
• Experience with API management platforms and tools (e.g., Apigee, AWS API Gateway, Postman).
• Deep expertise in modern software development tools/ways of working (e.g. git/GitHub, devops tools, metrics / monitoring, …) with a strong track record of successfully designing and developing APIs.
• In-depth knowledge of API design principles, protocols, and tools (REST, GraphQL, Swagger, etc.).

Preferred Qualifications & Skills:

If you have the following characteristics, it would be a plus:

• Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or related discipline.
• Experience with data modeling, particularly involving the use of semantic data and ontologies/taxonomies/business data.
• Experience architecting, building, or managing components of an ontology or/and metadata platform.
• Deep experience supporting industry standard big data technologies e.g., Spark, BigQuery, Cassandra, Kafka, HDFS, Snowflake
• Experience with event-driven architectures and implementing event hooks/triggers in API systems. Familiarity with webhooks, message queues, and pub/sub systems. Ability to design API integrations that enable real-time data updates and notifications.
• Optional NLP experience (named entity recognition, text classification). Familiarity with mass tagging, document evaluation methodologies. Apply NLP techniques to API development for advanced text processing, automated document evaluations, and natural language search.

Closing Date for Applications: Wednesday 5th March 2025 (COB)

Please take a copy of the Job Description, as this will not be available post closure of the advert. 
When applying for this role, please use the ‘cover letter’ of the online application or your CV to describe how you meet the competencies for this role, as outlined in the job requirements above. The information that you have provided in your cover letter and CV will be used to assess your application.

During the course of your application, you will be requested to complete voluntary information which will be used in monitoring the effectiveness of our equality and diversity policies. Your information will be treated as confidential and will not be used in any part of the selection process.  If you require a reasonable adjustment to the application / selection process to enable you to demonstrate your ability to perform the job requirements, please contact 0808 234 4391. This will help us to understand any modifications we may need to make to support you throughout our selection process.

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Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is 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. We prevent and treat disease with vaccines, specialty and general medicines. We focus on the science of the immune system and the use of new platform and data technologies, investing in four core therapeutic areas (infectious diseases, HIV, respiratory/ immunology and oncology).

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.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, we are open to all talent. In the US, we also adhere to Affirmative Action principles. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to neurodiversity, race/ethnicity, colour, national origin, religion, gender, pregnancy, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, age, disability, genetic information, military service, covered/protected veteran status or any other federal, state or local protected class*(*US only).

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

Should you require any adjustments to our process to assist you in demonstrating your strengths and capabilities contact us on [email protected] or 0808 234 4391.  The helpline is available from 8.30am to 12.00 noon Monday to Friday, during bank holidays these times and days may vary.

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