Associate Principal AI Engineer
About this opportunity
Associate Principal AI Engineer Help build the AI platforms powering the future of medicine.
Are you passionate about AI, machine learning and engineering at scale? Imagine applying that expertise to challenges across the pharmaceutical value chain, from drug discovery and clinical trial data to patient safety.
At AstraZeneca, you’ll have the opportunity to turn innovative ideas into practical AI capabilities that can ultimately make a meaningful difference for patients.
About the role
As an Associate Principal AI Engineer within our Enterprise AI Products and Technology Team, you’ll help build and evolve the platforms, tools and infrastructure that enable AI and Machine Learning across AstraZeneca.
You’ll collaborate with multidisciplinary engineering and Data Science teams, creating solutions that make it easier to move from experimentation to scalable, production-ready AI.
Our teams are applying AI to some of the most exciting challenges in life sciences, including:
Drug discovery and deep learning
Clinical trial data analysis
Knowledge graph analytics
Patient safety systems
Software as a Medical Device
If you combine a strong software engineering mindset with an understanding of how Data Scientists work, this is an opportunity to influence how AI is developed and scaled across a global biopharmaceutical organization.
What you’ll do
Partner with Data Scientists and Machine Learning Engineers to understand their challenges and build the platforms and tools that support their research and development.
Continuously improve Machine Learning development environments, platforms and tooling within a high-performing Agile team.
Work collaboratively with Cyber Security, Data Privacy and governance teams to create secure solutions while supporting end-user productivity.
Help optimize Machine Learning workloads for modern parallel environments, including distributed clusters, multicore systems and GPUs.
Champion a production-first mindset, helping teams transition exploratory Data Science work into scalable production solutions.
Contribute to automation, standards and best practices across the Machine Learning product lifecycle.
What you’ll bring
BSc, MSc or PhD in Computer Science or a related quantitative or analytical field.
Strong experience in software engineering, automation and DevOps.
Experience developing and deploying production-grade Machine Learning products, or exceptional software engineering experience in a related area.
3+ years of Python development experience, or exceptional proficiency in another programming language.
Knowledge of at least one orchestration framework such as Airflow, Argo or Kubeflow, or a strong willingness to learn.
Experience deploying infrastructure and tooling for Machine Learning or Data Science at scale using Infrastructure as Code.
Experience working in Agile environments.
Experience working with internal security standards and frameworks.
A creative, collaborative and resilient approach to solving complex problems.
Why AstraZeneca?
Here, AI isn’t just an experiment. You’ll be helping create the platforms and capabilities that enable teams across AstraZeneca to apply AI to complex scientific and healthcare challenges.
You’ll work alongside experts across engineering, Data Science and the wider organization, with the opportunity to build, challenge existing approaches and shape how AI is delivered at scale.
We believe that bringing different perspectives together fuels bold thinking and innovation. Our teams work, on average, a minimum of three days per week from the office, balanced with individual flexibility.
Ready to engineer AI solutions with the potential to make a real-world impact? Apply and help us shape what’s next.
Date Posted
03-nov-2026
Closing Date
16-nov-2026
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.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Data & Digital role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 227 comparable Principal Data & Digital roles across 48 biopharma companies.
Salary context
69 of 227 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 227 comparable roles
+ 18 more countries
Seniority mix
227 of 227 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
3 of 227 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
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How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.