Staff Application Engineer

The Onyx Research Data Tech organization represents a major investment by GSK R&D and Digital & Tech, designed to deliver a step-change in our ability to leverage data, knowledge, and prediction to find new medicines. We are 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 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 to unlock the value of our combined data assets
• Implementing scientific technology products that leverage the data and capabilities provisioned by Onyx 

As a Staff Application Engineer (Individual Contributor), you are a highly experienced technical leader who delivers high-impact engineering outcomes across multiple teams and products without formal people management responsibilities. You will take ambiguous, cross-functional problems from concept to scalable solutions; drive architecture and systems design that meet Onyx’s standards for security, reliability, and performance; raise the quality bar for engineering excellence; and mentor engineers to level up their technical and operational capabilities. You will own the operation of the applications you build, lead the resolution of complex incidents, and champion best practices in observability, testing, and automation. Your work directly increases the value we deliver to GSK’s scientific community.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead architecture and systems design for full-stack, data-driven, loosely coupled cloud applications; make pragmatic trade-offs that balance speed, quality, and long-term stability.
• Take poorly defined, high-ambiguity problems and drive them to a clear specification and execution plan; deliver solutions with cross-organizational impact and value.
• Own end-to-end delivery of large, strategic engineering initiatives, often crossing collective boundaries; ensure alignment to agreed target architectures and standards.
• Write high-quality, well-tested code and documentation; produce proposals, runbooks, and operational playbooks that enable clarity, maintenance, and scaling.
• Champion operational excellence: design for reliability and security, implement comprehensive observability (metrics, logs, traces), and ensure robust alerting and SLOs.
• Operate and support production systems: participate in on-call, lead incident resolution when needed, perform root-cause analysis, and drive durable follow-ups that reduce risk.
• Proactively refactor and simplify complex systems; repay technical debt with intent and measurable outcomes; improve performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.
• Develop APIs (REST/GraphQL/gRPC) and integration contracts that are resilient, secure, and well documented; advocate for consistent patterns across teams.
• Collaborate closely with product, design, data science, compliance/risk, and platform teams to align architectural decisions with user needs and organizational strategy.
• Mentor and sponsor engineers across teams (including senior engineers): raise coding standards, guide design choices, and help others navigate trade-offs and delivery.
• Elevate engineering practices across Onyx: standard-bearer for code reviews, test automation, CI/CD, accessibility, performance, and security-first design.
• Use data to inform decisions; introduce monitoring where needed to improve product and operational outcomes; communicate risk clearly to non-technical stakeholders.
• Stay current with relevant technologies (cloud-native services, data platforms, front-end frameworks); bring strategic insights that shape area-level technology direction.
• Contribute to cross-team initiatives that improve ways of working, incident management, support processes, and the overall quality bar for Onyx Application Engineering

Why You?

Basic Qualifications:

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

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 7+years of experience delivering complex, production-grade, cloud applications at scale.
• Experience with backend language and ecosystem (e.g., Python, Java, Scala, JavaScript/Node.js), including documentation, testing, observability, and operations.
• Proficiency in front-end technologies: JavaScript/TypeScript with React.js, Angular, or similar frameworks.
• Experience designing and building APIs (REST/GraphQL/gRPC); solid understanding of integration patterns and interoperability.
• Cloud experience developing and deploying in environments like Google Cloud (preferred), AWS, or Azure; hands-on with cloud-native services and infrastructure-as-code patterns.
• Experience with authentication and authorization mechanisms (e.g., OAuth2, OIDC); security-first mindset throughout the SDLC.
• Experience with modern SDLC and DevOps tooling: git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, containerization/orchestration, metrics/monitoring (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry)..
• Experience in agile software development and common environments such as Jira and Confluence.

Preferred Qualifications:

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

• Master’s degree or higher in Computer Science or related field.
• Experience leading large, strategic, complex engineering projects across multiple teams or collectives.
• Knowledge of database modelling, relational and non-relational data concepts, and SQL; performance tuning and data lifecycle management at scale.
• Experience with data visualization frameworks (e.g., D3.js, Plotly, Matplotlib) and building scientific data experiences.
• Evidence of embedding operational excellence (runbooks, on-call discipline, SLOs, post-incident learning) across teams.
• Familiarity with regulated environments and collaboration with compliance/security functions
• Demonstrated ability to lead architectural designs for complex systems, drive cross-team solutions, and deliver measurable improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability.
• Proven ability to debug and resolve complex production issues under pressure; leads incident resolution and drives durable prevention.
• Excellent communication skills (verbal and written); can articulate technical risk and decisions to technical and non-technical stakeholders; collaborates effectively across disciplines.
• Track record of mentoring engineers and elevating team standards and ways of working

#LI-GSK

• If you are based in Cambridge, MA; Waltham, MA; Rockville, MD; or San Francisco, CA, the annual base salary for new hires in this position ranges $170,775 to $284,625. The US salary ranges take into account a number of factors including work location within the US market, the candidate’s skills, experience, education level and the market rate for the role. In addition, this position offers an annual bonus and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program which is dependent on the level of the role. Available benefits include health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, paid holidays, vacation, and paid caregiver/parental and medical leave. If salary ranges are not displayed in the job posting for a specific country, the relevant compensation will be discussed during the recruitment process.

Please visit  GSK US Benefits Summary to learn more about the comprehensive benefits program GSK offers US employees.

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

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

If you require an accommodation or other assistance to apply for a job at GSK, please contact the GSK Service Centre at 1-877-694-7547 (US Toll Free) or +1 801 567 5155 (outside US).

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law.

Important notice to Employment businesses/ Agencies

GSK does not accept referrals from employment businesses and/or employment agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site. All employment businesses/agencies are required to contact GSK's commercial and general procurement/human resources department to obtain prior written authorization before referring any candidates to GSK. The obtaining of prior written authorization is a condition precedent to any agreement (verbal or written) between the employment business/ agency and GSK. In the absence of such written authorization being obtained any actions undertaken by the employment business/agency shall be deemed to have been performed without the consent or contractual agreement of GSK. GSK shall therefore not be liable for any fees arising from such actions or any fees arising from any referrals by employment businesses/agencies in respect of the vacancies posted on this site.

Please note that if you are a US Licensed Healthcare Professional or Healthcare Professional as defined by the laws of the state issuing your license, GSK may be required to capture and report expenses GSK incurs, on your behalf, in the event you are afforded an interview for employment. This capture of applicable transfers of value is necessary to ensure GSK’s compliance to all federal and state US Transparency requirements. For more information, please visit the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website at https://openpaymentsdata.cms.gov/