Engineering Manager - TuneLab

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Lilly Catalyze360 is a comprehensive approach to enabling the early-stage biotech ecosystem by democratizing access to infrastructure, expertise, and resources. Through its interconnected pillars—Lilly Ventures, Lilly Gateway Labs, Lilly ExploR&D, and Lilly TuneLab—Catalyze360 strategically removes barriers that traditionally block bold science from becoming life-changing medicines, providing biotechs with flexible combinations of capital, physical lab space, R&D capabilities, AI/ML tools, and decades of enterprise learning.  

Lilly TuneLab is an artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) platform that provides biotech companies access to drug discovery models trained on years of Lilly's research data. Lilly estimates that this first release of AI models includes proprietary data obtained at a cost of over $1 billion, representing one of the industry's most valuable datasets used to train an AI system available to biotechnology companies.  By integrating advanced in silico modelling and federated learning, we connect pioneering machine learning algorithms, substantial computational power, exclusive datasets, and Lilly’s domain-specific knowledge to drive innovation in drug discovery and facilitate access to optimal therapies for patients.  

TuneLab has powerful underlying models and point solutions. The job now is to turn them into something a biotech startup can actually use: a coherent workflow, a clean product experience, and a SaaS offering that scales.

We're looking for an Engineering Manager who can lead that build. This is a player-coach role: you'll be hands-on in the code while hiring and developing the team around you. You don't need a large team to be effective. You need strong instincts, a product mindset, and the ability to build well with limited resources.

You'll report to the Catalyze360 Head of AI Platform and Products, and serve as the engineering lead for TuneLab, owning technical execution from day one.

Build the product

• Own the engineering execution of TuneLab's SaaS offering. Design and ship the application layer that wraps Lilly's AI models into usable workflows for biotech customers.
• Architect and build the backend systems, APIs, and integrations that make a set of point solutions feel like a cohesive product.
• Make pragmatic decisions about what to build, what to integrate, and what to borrow. You're optimizing for speed and quality, not elegance for its own sake.
• Stay close to the code, especially early. This role requires genuine technical contribution, not just oversight.

Lead and grow the team

• Hire, mentor, and develop a small engineering team. You're building the culture and the practices from scratch.
• Create an environment where engineers do their best work: clear priorities, high standards, minimal noise.
• Partner with product to turn roadmap into well-scoped engineering work. You're a thought partner, not just an executor.
• Keep the team moving without waiting for perfect information.

Operate effectively inside a large company

• Navigate enterprise infrastructure, security, and compliance requirements without letting them slow the product to a crawl.
• Work with Lilly IT and internal platform teams to leverage existing capabilities rather than rebuild them.
• Represent engineering in conversations with external biotech partners. You can speak credibly to customers.

Education: 

• Bachelor’s degree 

Experience:

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with a track record of shipping SaaS products used by real customers.
• 3+ years of engineering management experience.

Technical depth

• Strong full-stack or backend fundamentals.
• Solid API design and integration experience. You know how to build systems that connect things cleanly.
• Cloud experience and comfort with modern deployment practices.
• Enough familiarity with AI/ML to make good integration decisions. You don't need to be a data scientist, but you need to understand what you're wrapping and why it matters.
• Hands-on experience building LLM-powered features. You understand the practical challenges: reliability, evals, context management, and when not to use AI.
• Comfortable with AI-assisted development tools (Cursor, Claude Code, Copilot, etc.). You know how to get the most out of them and expect your team to as well.

Product instincts

• You think about the user, not just the system. You've built software that external customers actually paid for and relied on.
• You've simplified complex backend capabilities into clean, usable product experiences.
• You ask "what problem are we solving?" before "how do we build it?"

Startup mentality

• You've worked in environments where the roadmap wasn't fully defined and the team was small, and you thrived.
• You create structure and process when needed, but you know when to skip it.
• You take ownership broadly. If something isn't working, you fix it rather than wait for someone else to.

Leadership

• You have a track record of hiring, developing, and retaining strong engineers
• Low ego, high standards. You hire people better than you in their domains and make them successful
• You communicate clearly across technical and non-technical audiences

• Experience in life sciences, pharma, or health tech.
• Background building B2B SaaS products.
• Prior experience at a startup, or in an internal startup within a larger company.

Lilly has built genuinely differentiated AI capabilities for drug discovery. The gap is product: turning that science into something a biotech startup can access, onboard, and build with. That's what this role is about.

You'll have real ownership, a short decision chain, and work that matters. The team you build and the product you ship will directly affect how medicines get discovered and developed. That's not a line in a pitch deck - it's the actual job.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

#WeAreLilly