AI Automation/Application Engineer - Python/ R Shiny
My global pharma company is looking for an experienced AI Automation/Application Engineer to join their Business Digital, Data & AI Infrastructure sub-function, which designs, builds and runs the data, digital and AI capabilities. You will work closely with business teams, IT & Architecture, Data Governance, Information Security and Quality & Compliance.
As an AI Automation / Application Engineer you are a hands-on builder of AI solutions, reporting to the Business Digital, Data & AI Infrastructure Lead. You turn business needs into working tools quickly: AI skills, agentified dashboards, process automations and data pipelines.
Essential Technical Skills
- At least 3 years building data applications, automations or internal tools used by business teams.
- Python: Strong Python for scripting, automation and data processing (pandas, requests, testing).
- R and Shiny: Solid R and experience building and deploying Shiny applications.
- SQL and APIs: Good SQL and experience integrating systems through REST APIs.
- Generative AI: Practical experience building with LLM APIs or AI coding tools, including prompt design and structured outputs.
- Ways of working: Git and version control; comfortable working iteratively with non-technical users and translating their needs into working tools.
- You are a pragmatic, hands-on builder who enjoys turning everyday business problems into working tools.
- You move fast, test with real users and care about code that others can maintain.
Desirable Skills
- Snowflake or another cloud data warehouse.
- Building AI agents, agent skills or connectors to business systems.
- Agent frameworks (e.g. LangGraph).
- Business intelligence and data-preparation tools.
- Deploying applications and scheduled jobs with containers (Docker) in a cloud environment (e.g. AWS).
- Experience in pharmaceutical R&D or another regulated environment (GxP).
Education
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Information Systems or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Key duties of the role
- AI skills and agents: Build and maintain AI skills and agents that take on repetitive work - for example reports and presentations that assemble themselves, document checks and request-to-system workflows.
- Agentified dashboards: Develop R Shiny (or Shiny for Python) applications with built-in AI assistants that explain trends, flag issues and answer questions.
- Process automation: Automate manual, repetitive steps across business tools, documents and spreadsheets.
- Human-in-the-loop automations: Build supervised automations and agents where people review and approve outputs before they are used.
- Data pipelines and integrations: Build scheduled jobs that pull, clean, reconcile and combine data from business systems to create reliable insights.
- Quality and documentation: Write tested, version-controlled code and clear documentation; produce validation evidence for regulated use cases with the Senior AI Solutions Engineer and Quality & Compliance.
- Adoption and support: Run user testing with business teams, train users, gather feedback, iterate quickly and track usage and time saved.
- Run and improve: Maintain live tools, fix issues and keep them working as source systems change.
The role can be based Hybrid working out of Welwyn Garden City with a view to be on site days a week. This is an excellent opportunity and I have interview slots ready to be filled so don't delay and apply ASAP to be considered.