Principal Tech Engineer – Site Serialisation Systems

About the Team:

Enterprise Systems is the backbone of GSK’s internal operations in Digital & Tech, enabling GSK Global Functions teams such as Finance, Procurement, HR, Legal, Compliance, WREF, CGA and Corporate Secretariat to run seamlessly. This team designs and delivers cutting-edge digital platforms that power critical processes, ensuring efficiency, compliance, and scalability across the enterprise.

Enterprise Systems Management & Business Operations delivers digital solutions that support Enterprise Systems running as a high-performing organisation. This team drives financial discipline, operational rigour and strategic alignment across the ES portfolio that safeguard GSK’s integrity and reputation globally. By joining this team, you’ll help shape systems that support thousands of employees worldwide, driving innovation and reliability in the tools that keep GSK moving forward.

Job Purpose

The Principal Tech Engineer - Site Serialisation Systems provides technical leadership for site serialisation systems within PIMMS (the Manufacturing Track & Trace product), across the broader product family, technology platform or programme. The role leads solution design, validation, implementation and troubleshooting and ensures technical outputs align with approved architecture, product strategy, engineering standards and GxP requirements.

The role is hands-on and embedded close to business problems. The job holder personally investigates complex failures, interrogates data, logs and interfaces, challenges vendor and partner designs and resolves integration problems, rather than primarily coordinating or escalating them. The role works across the site serialisation estate rather than being tied to a single site and retains technical judgement and engineering integrity where strategic partners deliver routine build, test, deployment and support.

The job holder applies AI-assisted methods to development, troubleshooting, testing, documentation, knowledge management, monitoring and automation, while retaining full human accountability for technical decisions and GxP, Responsible AI, cyber security and architecture compliance.

The role also develops engineering capability by coaching engineers and super users and converting lessons learned into reusable designs, standards, training and knowledge.

Key Responsibilities

• Implement technical solution designs and configurations in accordance with approved architecture and product strategy.
• Own technical quality for the assigned scope, including specifications, design documentation, configuration records and technical validation evidence.
• Perform troubleshooting and root-cause analysis, with timely escalation where manufacturing batches, product quality, patient supply or data integrity may be affected.
• Design or configure interfaces, workflows, recipes, data models and environments, including site serialisation system integrations, and write or review related specifications and test scripts. Hold configurations, interface mappings and scripts under version control, subject changes to peer review, and verify them through repeatable automated or scripted tests, retaining traceable test evidence under approved change and GxP validation controls.
• Own the technical reliability of site serialisation systems, including monitoring, recoverability, obsolescence and technical debt, addressing root causes so that incidents do not recur rather than closing individual tickets
• Actively extract and codify existing serialisation knowledge into runbooks, integration patterns, troubleshooting guides and technical documentation, building capability across the wider engineering teams rather than creating a single point of dependency.
• Lead technical design and implementation across multiple projects, releases or sites.
• Review and approve key technical specifications, design documents, configurations, test scripts and validation evidence.
• Lead diagnosis and resolution of complex incidents, integration failures and data-integrity issues, and act as the technical authority over strategic partner output - accepting or rejecting designs, configurations and test evidence against GSK engineering, architecture and regulatory standards.
• Assess technical risks and ensure mitigation addresses security, compliance, resilience, data integrity and supportability.
• Maintain technical standards and reusable engineering assets for the assigned product family or platform.
• Support formal technical assurance, GxP validation, audits and inspections for regulated site systems and ensure corrective actions are evidence based.
• Identify repetitive serialisation engineering and support activities suitable for automation, reduce manual diagnosis, testing, deployment and support effort, and reuse automation across sites rather than resolving the same problem repeatedly.
• Apply AI-assisted methods to development, troubleshooting, testing, documentation and automation within Responsible AI, data privacy, cyber security and GxP controls, validating all output before use and retaining human accountability for technical decisions.
• Direct and coordinate external vendors, system integrators and managed service partners across design, build, release and stabilisation; set technical direction and acceptance criteria for their work, review and formally accept or reject their designs, configurations and test evidence, and hold them to GSK engineering, architecture, security and GxP standards.

Key Relationships / Customers

Business and Site Stakeholders

• Manufacturing, Quality, Supply Chain and APS stakeholders
• Site engineers, automation teams, local Tech teams, super users and key users
• Business Process Owners and operational risk owners

Digital & Technology Stakeholders

• Product Managers and Product Owners
• Solution and Enterprise Architects
• Engineering, DevOps, Data and Integration teams
• Service Managers, Cyber Security and Infrastructure teams
• Validation, Quality and technical assurance teams

Other

• Technology vendors, including but not limited to SEA Vision and Systech
• System integrators and specialist engineering partners
• Managed service and support providers

Area of Specialisation

• Technical solution implementation and configuration, with emphasis on GxP systems
• Interfaces, workflows, recipes, data models and environment design
• Technical specifications, design documentation and validation evidence
• Testing, release, deployment and configuration management
• Logs, metrics, monitoring and root-cause analysis
• Security, data integrity, resilience and supportability
• GxP-regulated manufacturing technology environments, preferably including site serialisation systems
• Technical leadership across products, sites or programmes
• Design assurance and complex technical decision making

Basic Qualifications

• Minimum 7+ years of hands-on technical engineering experience in complex enterprise or operational technology environments, including experience with GxP-regulated manufacturing systems, preferably including demonstrable hands-on pharmaceutical serialisation / Track & Trace engineering experience covering production troubleshooting.
• Experience working in Agile or product engineering environments, including translating operational problems into backlog items, iterating quickly, demonstrating working solutions and partnering with product teams through lifecycle ownership.
• Experience in leading technical design and implementation for a product family, platform, programme or multiple sites.
• Experience maintaining configurations, interface mappings and scripts under version control, conducting peer reviews, and developing and executing repeatable automated or scripted tests, with traceable evidence. Experience reviewing and approving specifications, design documents, configurations, test scripts and technical validation evidence.
• Demonstrated leadership of complex troubleshooting and root-cause investigations across systems, interfaces, workflows, data and infrastructure.
• Experience coordinating internal engineers, site teams, vendors and specialist partners through design, deployment and stabilisation.
• Experience assessing technical risk and ensuring security, data integrity, resilience, compliance and supportability requirements are met.
• Experience coaching engineers and translating lessons learned into reusable standards, patterns and knowledge.
• Experience supporting audits, inspections or formal technical assurance activities.

Preferred Qualifications

• Strong analytical and structured problem-solving skills.
• Ability to translate architecture and product direction into clear technical designs and implementation activities.
• Clear technical writing and disciplined maintenance of specifications, designs, test evidence and configuration records.
• Understanding of interfaces, workflows, data, environments, monitoring and operational support.
• Awareness of security, quality, validation, data integrity, resilience and change controls.
• Ability to collaborate across global business, site, engineering, architecture, product, service and supplier teams.
• Practical use of AI-assisted development, agent-based workflows and prompt templates for engineering, testing, documentation and support, applied within Responsible AI, data privacy, cyber security and GxP controls.
• Technical leadership and ability to challenge designs constructively.
• Coaching and knowledge-transfer capability.
• Confidence communicating technical risk and recommendations to governance and senior stakeholders.

Key Technical & Leadership Capabilities

Application of Knowledge

Applies advanced solution and domain engineering knowledge to lead technical design and delivery across site serialisation systems, and the wider product family or programme. Reviews technical outputs, resolves complex design questions and ensures implementation aligns with architecture, product strategy, GxP requirements and quality standards.

Problem Solving & Innovation

Leads complex troubleshooting and root-cause analysis across applications, integrations, workflows, data and environments. Determines investigation priorities where operational, batch or data-integrity impact may exist and drives sustainable remediation. Converts lessons learned into standards and reusable patterns.

Interaction

Coordinates engineers, site teams, Architects, Service Managers and suppliers. Provides clear technical direction, challenges weak evidence and communicates risks and recommendations to delivery and governance stakeholders. Coaches engineers and super users.

Impact

Directly affects technical quality, release safety, reliability and supportability across significant solutions. Decisions influence operational continuity, validation quality, recurring defects and the ability to scale or reuse solutions across products and sites.

Skills

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.

Inclusion at GSK:

As an employer committed to Inclusion, we encourage you to reach out if you need any adjustments during the recruitment process.

Please contact our Recruitment Team at [email protected] to discuss your needs.

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.

It has come to our attention that the names of GlaxoSmithKline or GSK or our group companies are being used in connection with bogus job advertisements or through unsolicited emails asking candidates to make some payments for recruitment opportunities and interview. Please be advised that such advertisements and emails are not connected with the GlaxoSmithKline group in any way.

GlaxoSmithKline does not charge any fee whatsoever for recruitment process. Please do not make payments to any individuals / entities in connection with recruitment with any GlaxoSmithKline (or GSK) group company at any worldwide location. Even if they claim that the money is refundable.

If you come across unsolicited email from email addresses not ending in gsk.com or job advertisements which state that you should contact an email address that does not end in “gsk.com”, you should disregard the same and inform us by emailing [email protected], so that we can confirm to you if the job is genuine.