Data Engineer / MLOps and AI Engineer

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 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.

About the role

The Data Engineer / MLOps & AI Engineer is an incredible opportunity within the Data Science & Advanced Analytics team to support the transformation of AI/ML for Alexion’s Rare Disease Unit by crafting, developing, and fielding data science solutions that drive impact for patients. This role operates at the intersection of traditional ML engineering and autonomous AI. It involves crafting, deploying, and managing both classical machine learning systems and AI workflows that improve commercial efficiency across the US rare disease portfolio.

The primary focus will be collaborating with data scientists, and insights & analytics to build production-grade analytics infrastructure on Snowflake and Cortex AI — from predictive patient identification models and field force alert engines to agentic workflows that autonomously surface insights and recommend actions. This position ensures that ML models and AI agent systems are reproducible, compliant, performant, and scalable throughout their lifecycle. A strong focus is placed on data quality, monitoring, governance, and agent-executable system design.

Key Responsibilities

ML & Data Engineering

• Model Lifecycle Management: Develop and maintain pipelines to transition models from experimentation to production, including packaging, CI/CD, automated testing, and deployment. Support model serving for patient identification, alignment prediction, Next-Best-Action engines, and competitive intelligence models on Snowflake and Cortex AI.
• Data Pipeline Development: Design robust batch and streaming data workflows integrating specialty pharmacy, hub/PSP, CRM (Veeva), syndicated (IQVIA, MMIT), claims, and Model N data within Snowflake. Define and manage feature sets, lineage, and reuse to support AI/ML initiatives across the rare disease portfolio.
• Production Operations & Monitoring: Ensure reliability and scalability of ML systems; implement effective logging, tracing, and alerting. Establish monitoring for model performance, data drift, bias, and service health. Monitor data quality across rare disease data feeds where small population sizes amplify the impact of anomalies.

Agentic AI & Agent Systems Engineering

• Agent Workflow Build: Collaborate with data scientists and commercial collaborators to decompose complex business workflows into agent-executable workstreams on Cortex AI. Determine which components are best suited for agent execution versus human data science judgment and define the boundaries between them.
• Instruction Architecture & Prompt Engineering: Design and maintain prompt architecture, agent skills, agent memories, and context injection patterns. Author structured coding instructions that translate commercial analytics requirements into precise agent directives with clear acceptance criteria.
• Build agentic AI systems that autonomously detect anomalies in commercial data, such as competitive switching, patient discontinuation signals, and payer access changes. These systems generate hypotheses and push recommended actions to collaborators and CRM systems.
• Token Economics & Cost Optimization: Optimize agent execution for cost efficiency — manage context window utilization, minimize token consumption, and design instruction patterns that reduce iteration cycles. Monitor token economics per workstream to balance capability with budget.

Governance, Security & Compliance

• Model, Agent & Data Governance: Implement version control, approvals, documentation, and audit trails for datasets, code, models, and agent instructions. Ensure all AI/ML outputs are explainable, auditable, and compliant with HIPAA/PHI, GDPR, FDA promotional regulations, and REMS requirements. Enforce secrets management, role-based access control, network policies, and data protection for agents operating on sensitive healthcare and commercial data within the enterprise perimeter.

Collaboration & Enablement

• Multi-Functional Partnership: Work closely with data scientists, commercial analysts, and collaborators across Brand, Market Access, Patient Services, and Field teams. Provide frameworks, templates, and guardrails that accelerate analytics delivery.
• Build and Validation Passionate about Testing: Set up testing frameworks for both traditional ML models and agent-generated code. Design validation pipelines with automated quality gates including type checking, linting, integration tests, and contract tests.
• Documentation & Release Management: Develop clear and detailed guides, operational playbooks, and user instructions. Coordinate releases with commercial operations and IT; maintain runbooks, rollback strategies, and change tickets.

Required Qualifications

• Education: Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Data Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent experience.
• Experience: 3–6+ years in MLOps, Data Engineering, or ML Platform roles with a proven track record of deploying ML solutions at scale. At least 2+ years building complex data science or large-scale analytics solutions.
• Programming: Proficiency in Python and SQL; familiarity with TypeScript/JavaScript or a systems language (Go, Rust). Experience with TDD, CI/CD pipelines, and code quality standards.
• CI/CD & Infrastructure: Experience with CI/CD tools (e.g., GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps), containerization (Docker), and cloud infrastructure concepts.
• ML Tools: Hands-on experience with model packaging and serving frameworks (e.g., SageMaker, Databricks MLflow), experiment tracking, and model registry tools.
• Data Technologies: Proficiency with Snowflake (including Snowpark and Snowpark Container Services), distributed processing (Spark), and data orchestration (Airflow).
• AI/Agent Tools: Hands-on experience with AI coding tools (Claude Code, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, or equivalent) and Cortex AI or comparable LLM serving platforms. Working understanding of how LLMs reason about code and familiarity with prompt engineering as an engineering field.
• Security & Compliance: Understanding of data privacy and security in healthcare; experience with secrets management, audit controls, and compliance frameworks (HIPAA, SOC2, 21 CFR Part 11).
• Systems Thinking: Ability to design for how components interact at scale across both traditional ML infrastructure and agentic AI architectures.

Preferred Qualifications

• Domain Experience: Knowledge of pharmaceutical commercial analytics in rare disease or specialty pharma — HCP/HCO targeting, patient identification, call planning, demand forecasting, specialty pharmacy data, hub/PSP operations, and omnichannel measurement.
• Rare Disease Data Proficiency: Experience with IQVIA (LAAD, Symphony, NPA), Veeva CRM, MMIT, Model N, specialty pharmacy dispense data, claims/RWD, and EMR/EHR data in small-population, high-value-per-patient environments.
• Agent System Design: Experience designing multi-agent workflows, agent orchestration patterns, and autonomous systems for enterprise applications. Understanding of MCP (Model Context Protocol) and agent interoperability frameworks.
• Performance & Scalability: Experience with high-throughput inference, batch scoring at scale, low-latency APIs, and horizontal scalability for agent workloads.
• Enterprise Integration: Experience integrating with Snowflake, Veeva, Salesforce, Microsoft 365, and ServiceNow APIs to enable end-to-end automation.
• Communication & Collaboration: Excellent verbal and written communication skills; able to present complex findings to both technical and non-technical audiences. Strong orientation toward teamwork in a fast-paced, regulated environment.

Why This Role Matters

This role is at the center of that shift for Alexion’s US Commercial organization — building the engineering foundation that makes both classical ML models and agentic AI systems reliable, auditable, and effective enough to operate at enterprise scale in a regulated rare disease environment. You will be instrumental in delivering the Data Science & Advanced Analytics capabilities that help Alexion find undiagnosed patients, optimize the rare disease field force, and drive commercial performance across a portfolio of life-changing therapies.

At Alexion, you will find a collaborative culture that encourages innovation and a diverse environment where your contributions are valued. You will have the opportunity to be at the forefront of rare disease research and make a meaningful difference in patients' lives.

Ready to lead and inspire? Apply now and take the first step towards a fulfilling career at Alexion, AstraZeneca Rare Disease.

#LI-Hybrid

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Annual base salary for this position ranges from 115,693.60 to 151,847.85.

AstraZeneca is committed to providing fair and equitable compensation opportunities to all colleagues. Our compensation policies and practices have been designed to allow colleagues to progress through the salary range over time as they progress in their role. The range provided in this posting represents an offer pay range used in a majority of situations. The base pay offered will vary depending on multiple individualized factors, including the candidate's skills and experience, job-related knowledge, and other specific business and organizational needs.  In some cases, offers outside the range may also be considered to address unique circumstances.

In addition, our permanent positions offer an annual Variable Pay Bonus/Short Term Incentive opportunity as well as eligibility to participate in our equity-based long-term incentive program (if applicable to role).  Benefits offered for permanent roles include a competitive Flex Benefits & Retirement Savings Program, 4 weeks’ paid vacation, and annual Personal Days. Fixed Term Contract/Temporary positions (excluding students) are offered a Contract Benefits Program.

We are using AI as part of the recruitment process.

This advertisement relates to a current vacancy.