Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Position

The Novo Nordisk Research and Early Development IT is seeking a Senior AI/ML Engineer responsible for optimizing and deploying AI/ML solutions. This role involves partnering closely with internal AI/ML scientists, scaling up exploratory work, and transitioning solutions from JupyterLab to ML pipelines. Collaboration with ML Infrastructure engineers is essential to codevelop ML platforms, improve training pipelines, and ensure repeatable ML. The Senior ML Engineer will work directly with AI/ML scientists on optimization and problem solving, creating blueprints, and consulting internally to bring ideas from prototype to production.

Responsibilities of the position include:

• Working directly with AI/ML scientists on optimization and production deployment of solutions, creating blueprints, and acting as an internal consultant to transition ideas from prototype to production
• Exploring and visualizing data to understand it, identifying differences in data distribution that could affect model performance when deployed in real-world data
• Verifying data quality and ensuring it through data cleaning and ML validation strategies
• Building the training pipeline and components to ensure scalable ML solutions and addressing errors and providing education to upskill teams working on ML, increasing MLops proficiency

The position offers hybrid working model with 2 days from home and 2-3 fixed days in either the central London Office or in Oxford, collaborating with digital specialists and scientists.

Qualifications

Our preferred candidate has a positive personality with well-established technical skills, experience working with technical data scientists, data engineers, and life scientists. A PhD or master’s degree with relevant experience, or a bachelor’s degree with solid expertise are greatly desired, and recent work experience in healthcare/life science organization would be an advantage.

The position requires:

• Strong programming skills in Python, data analytics, deep learning (Scikit-learn, Pandas, PyTorch, Jupyter, pipelines), and practical knowledge of data tools like Databricks, Ray, Vector Databases, Kubernetes, and workflow scheduling tools such as Apache Airflow, Dagster, and Astronomer
• Familiarity with GPU computing, both on-premises and on cloud platforms, and experience in building end-to-end scalable ML infrastructure with on-premises DGX or cloud platforms including Amazon Web Services EKS/Sage Maker, Azure Machine Learning/AKS, or common ML platforms (ClearML, MLflow, Weights and Biases)
• Strong understanding of AWS, Azure, containerization/Kubernetes, multiple automation/DevOps, and ML lifecycle practices
• Practical knowledge in data wrangling, handling, processing, integrating, and analysing large heterogeneous data sets related to drug discovery
• Experience with LLMs (refining, DPO, training, hosting, RAGs, and working with multiple agents including LaMDA index, vector databases, etc.)
• Significant expertise in building production-grade machine learning models in industry and/or academic research settings, building, training, and deploying ML

On a personal level, successful collaboration with cross-functional teams to support the engineering and implementation of foundational infrastructure is essential. Effective communication of complex technical concepts to less technical audiences and upskilling scientific and associated engineering teams is also a key aspect of the role.

About the Department

The position is connected to our DDIT-R&ED UK department located in the heart of London and the University of Oxford medical campus. The department currently consists of 12 IT and Data specialists and is building up additional capabilities and capacity. The position is functionally anchored into our Denmark team where most of our Scrum Masters reside.

We are strongly linked with the Novo Nordisk Research Centre Oxford (NNRCO), an innovative target discovery unit with a focus on identifying novel, game-changing therapies for patients. The site is a fusion of the best of academia, biotech, software engineering, and big pharma to realize cutting-edge biology. NNRCO operates at the boundaries of frontier science with a mandate to find dynamic, agile, and distinctive new ways of working to diversify the company’s pipeline with disruptive medicines. Additionally, we support our In-Silico and In-Vitro needs and provide IT infrastructure in close collaboration with the global DD&IT organisation and product teams. We strive to efficiently drive digital, data & IT innovation and transformation by leveraging agile methodologies. We enjoy empowerment and autonomy and believe that it is the people’s differences, knowledge, and experience that create the joint strengths of the team.

Working at Novo Nordisk

At Novo Nordisk, we don’t wait for change. We drive it. We’re a dynamic company in an even more dynamic industry, and we know that what got us to where we are today is not necessarily what will make us successful in the future. We embrace the spirit of experimentation, striving for excellence without fixating on perfection. We never shy away from opportunities to develop, we seize them. From research and development, through to manufacturing, marketing, and sales – we’re all working to move the needle on patient care.

Contact

Please use the application link to apply for the position. We are not able to consider any other applications.

Deadline

Please apply before 30th April 2024.

Please note that applications will be reviewed continuously, and interviews will be planned as soon as a suitable candidate is identified. 

We commit to an inclusive recruitment process and equality of opportunity for all our job applicants. 

At Novo Nordisk we recognize that it is no longer good enough to aspire to be the best company in the world. We need to aspire to be the best company for the world and we know that this is only possible with talented employees with diverse perspectives, backgrounds and cultures. We are therefore committed to creating an inclusive culture that celebrates the diversity of our employees, the patients we serve and communities we operate in. Together, we’re life changing.