Principal Software Engineer

ROLE SUMMARY
We are seeking a skilled Software Engineer who will design, build, and maintain software systems that deliver business value. In this role, you will focus on code quality, architecture decisions, and reliable delivery while leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity. You will verify and review AI-generated code to ensure it meets our quality standards.
You will be bridging the gap between building products and solving real business problems through rapid solution delivery and deep domain expertise . As part of the discovery-to-scale pipeline, you will identify recurring patterns , and lead validated solutions generalization into enterprise capabilities.
This role encompasses organization-wide technical strategy and architectural direction. You will define strategic direction and be accountable for outcomes, shape organizational practices and maintain external industry visibility. You will handle organizational-scale complexity creating clarity from chaos.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES:
DELIVERY
You drive delivery of the most critical technical initiatives, establish engineering delivery practices across the business unit, and are the technical authority on high-stakes projects:
Application Deployment: You shape deployment strategy across the business unit. You drive platform adoption, establish deployment best practices at scale, and are recognized for deployment architecture expertise.
Data Integration: You define data integration patterns and best practices across the business unit. You architect large-scale data flows, solve the most complex integration challenges, and are the authority on enterprise data integration.
Full-Stack Development: You work comfortably in any language and rapidly acquire new skills as needed. You deliver production solutions in days not months, shape full-stack practices across the business unit, and exemplify polymathic engineering.
Problem Discovery: You shape approaches to problem discovery across the business unit. You are recognized for transforming ambiguous situations into clear opportunities, influence how teams engage with business problems, and are the go-to person for the most undefined challenges.
Prototype to Production: You shape prototype-to-production practices across the business unit. You define standards for prototype handoff, establish quality gates for each conversion layer, and are recognized for turning validated prototypes into production systems efficiently.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
You shape AI engineering strategy across the business unit, pioneer novel AI integration patterns, publish on AI-augmented development, and are the authority on AI in engineering:
AI Evaluation & Observability: You shape AI observability and evaluation practices across the business unit. You pioneer novel evaluation methodologies, contribute to industry standards for LLM evaluation, and are recognized as a thought leader in AI quality assurance at scale.
AI Literacy: You shape AI literacy programs across the business unit. You contribute to industry understanding of AI in software engineering, speak publicly on AI applications, and are recognized as a thought leader.
AI-Augmented Development: You shape AI development tooling strategy across the business unit. You pioneer novel AI-augmented development patterns, contribute to the field through publication, and are recognized as an authority on AI in software engineering.
LLM Integration: You shape LLM integration strategy across the business unit. You architect multi-provider gateway patterns, drive enterprise LLM governance, and are recognized for LLM integration expertise.
DOCUMENTATION

• You shape knowledge strategy across the business unit, enable broad knowledge sharing, and are recognized for documentation excellence:
• Developer Experience: You shape developer experience strategy across the business unit. You create innovative approaches to internal platforms, are recognized for building high-adoption self-service capabilities, and influence industry practices on internal developer platforms.
• Knowledge Management: You shape enterprise knowledge strategy and governance. You drive learning organization culture, create frameworks that others adopt, and are recognized for building knowledge-sharing organizations.
• Pattern Generalization: You shape the discovery-to-scale pipeline across the business unit. You define the organizational approach to pattern generalization, balance enterprise standardization with field flexibility, and are recognized for building high-adoption platform capabilities from field discoveries.
• Technical Writing: You shape documentation culture and standards across the business unit. You innovate on documentation approaches, are recognized for exceptional technical writing clarity, and lead documentation initiatives.

MACHINE LEARNING

• You define ML strategy across the business unit, lead enterprise ML initiatives, innovate on ML approaches, and are the technical authority on machine learning:
• Model Development: You innovate on ML approaches for novel problems, shape ML strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field through research or publication, and are recognized as an ML authority.
• Model Fine-Tuning: You innovate on fine-tuning approaches for novel problems, shape model customization strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field, and are recognized as a fine-tuning authority.
• Retrieval Augmentation: You innovate on RAG architectures for novel problems, shape RAG strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field through research or tooling, and are recognized as a RAG authority.

BUSINESS

• You shape technology-driven business strategy, represent the technical perspective at executive level, and are recognized as a bridge between engineering and business:
• Business Immersion: You are a recognized thought leader in your domain. You influence domain strategy across the business unit, exemplify the business immersion mindset that defines forward-deployed engineering, and shape how engineering engages with the business.
• Stakeholder Management: You shape stakeholder practices across the business unit. You manage executive relationships, represent engineering at the highest levels, and are recognized for exceptional stakeholder partnerships.

PEOPLE

• You develop technical leaders, shape engineering talent strategy across the business unit, and build high-performing engineering teams:
• Multi-Audience Communication: You shape communication practices across the business unit. You represent engineering externally, communicate at board and executive level, and are recognized as an exceptional communicator who bridges any audience gap.
• Team Collaboration: You create collaborative culture across the business unit. You transform dysfunctional team dynamics, are recognized for building exceptional teams, and mentor others on collaboration excellence.

ROLE BEHAVIOURS

• Don't Lose Your Curiosity: Shapes organizational culture around curiosity and continuous learning; sponsors experimental initiatives across the organization; recognized externally as a thought leader in problem discovery; influences industry practices around innovation and exploration
• Own the Outcome: Defines organizational accountability standards focused on business impact; shapes industry practices around outcome ownership in the AI era; sponsors transformational initiatives with full outcome accountability; recognized externally for ownership culture leadership
• Be Polymath Oriented: Champions cross-disciplinary learning; creates holistic solutions spanning technical and business domains; embodies the Renaissance Developer ideal; translates specialized knowledge into accessible explanations; thinks like a business insider
• Communicate with Precision: Creates spec-driven development practices; mentors others on precise communication; spans C-level executives to frontline workers; drives clarity as a core value across their function; represents the organization externally
• Think in Systems: Shapes systems design practices across their function; conducts chaos engineering experiments; influences cross-team architecture decisions; creates clarity from complexity; bridges technical systems with business processes

QUALIFICATIONS:
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field with extensive relevant experience. Deep technical expertise with a proven track record of organization-wide technical leadership.
EXPERT-LEVEL SKILLS

• Business Immersion: You are a recognized thought leader. You influence strategy across the business, exemplify the business immersion mindset that defines engineering, and shape how engineering engages with the business.
• Data Integration: You define data integration patterns and best practices. You architect large-scale data flows, solve the most complex integration challenges, and are the authority on enterprise data integration.
• Full-Stack Development: You work comfortably in any language and rapidly acquire new skills as needed. You deliver production solutions in days not months, shape full-stack practices and exemplify polymathic engineering.
• Multi-Audience Communication: You shape communication practices. You represent engineering externally, communicate at board and executive level, and are recognized as an exceptional communicator who bridges any audience gap.
• Problem Discovery: You shape approaches to problem discovery. You are recognized for transforming ambiguous situations into clear opportunities, influence how teams engage with business problems, and are the go-to person for the most undefined challenges.
• Rapid Prototyping & Validation: You shape culture around rapid validation and iterative delivery. You are recognized for transformative fast delivery, define standards for prototype-to-production, and exemplify the "deliver in days" mindset.
• Stakeholder Management: You shape stakeholder practices. You manage executive relationships, represent engineering at the highest levels, and are recognized for exceptional stakeholder partnerships.
• Team Collaboration: You create collaborative culture. You transform dysfunctional team dynamics, are recognized for building exceptional teams, and me ntor others on collaboration excellence.

PRACTITIONER-LEVEL SKILLS

• AI Evaluation & Verification: You lead AI governance initiatives across teams in your area, create evaluation standards and checklists, and train engineers on rigorous AI verification. You design review processes for AI-assisted work.
• AI Literacy: You guide AI adoption decisions across teams in your area, assess AI risks and benefits systematically, and train engineers on responsible AI usage. You design human-in-the-loop workflows.
• AI-Augmented Development: You optimize AI tool usage across teams in your area, train engineers on AI-augmented workflows, evaluate new AI development tools, and establish practices that balance AI speed with verification rigor.
• Architecture & Design: You design complex multi-component systems end-to-end, evaluate architectural options for large initiatives across teams, guide technical decisions for your area, and mentor engineers on architecture. You balance elegance with delivery needs.
• Code Quality & Review: You establish and enforce quality standards across teams in your area. You mentor engineers on effective code review, ensure verification depth for AI-assisted development, and drive testing strategies.
• Developer Experience: You lead developer experience initiatives across teams in your area. You design comprehensive self-service platforms, establish DX metrics, conduct systematic user research, and mentor engineers on platform-as-product thinking.
• Knowledge Management: You lead knowledge management initiatives across teams in your area, create knowledge systems and taxonomies, establish practices that make institutional knowledge persistent, and mentor others on knowledge sharing.
• Pattern Generalization: You lead pattern generalization initiatives across teams, define criteria for when to generalize vs keep custom. You mentor engineers on abstraction design.
• Service Management: You lead service management practices for multiple services across teams, optimize service portfolios for your area, balance service investments, and train engineers on service-oriented thinking.
• Site Reliability Engineering: You define reliability standards across teams in your area, drive post-incident improvements systematically, design capacity planning processes, and mentor engineers on SRE practices.
• Technical Writing: You define documentation standards across teams in your area, create documentation systems and templates, train engineers on spec-driven development, and ensure documentation quality across projects.

WORKING-LEVEL SKILLS

• Cloud Platforms: You design cloud-native solutions, manage infrastructure as code, implement security best practices, and make informed service selections. You troubleshoot cloud-specific issues.
• Data Modeling: You create efficient data models that balance normalization with query performance. You optimize queries, handle schema migrations safely, and choose appropriate storage technologies.
• DevOps & CI/CD: You build complete CI/CD pipelines end-to-end, manage infrastructure as code (Terraform, CloudFormation), implement monitoring, and design deployment strategies for your services.
• Lean Thinking & Flow: You optimize team processes systematically, measure and improve cycle time, remove bottlenecks proactively, and deliver rapidly while maintaining quality.
• Technical Debt Management: You prioritize debt systematically based on risk and impact, balance debt reduction with feature work, and make pragmatic trade-offs. You know when to take on debt intentionally.
• Time Management & Deep Work: You protect focused time for complex work, balance multiple priorities without dropping balls, minimize context switching, and help others understand your capacity.

Work Location Assignment: Hybrid
Purpose
Breakthroughs that change patients' lives... At Pfizer we are a patient centric company, guided by our four values: courage, joy, equity and excellence. Our breakthrough culture lends itself to our dedication to transforming millions of lives.
Digital Transformation Strategy
One bold way we are achieving our purpose is through our company wide digital transformation strategy. We are leading the way in adopting new data, modelling and automated solutions to further digitize and accelerate drug discovery and development with the aim of enhancing health outcomes and the patient experience.
Flexibility
We aim to create a trusting, flexible workplace culture which encourages employees to achieve work life harmony, attracts talent and enables everyone to be their best working self. Let's start the conversation!
Equal Employment Opportunity
We believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial to building a successful business. As an employer, Pfizer is committed to celebrating this, in all its forms - allowing for us to be as diverse as the patients and communities we serve. Together, we continue to build a culture that encourages, supports and empowers our employees.
Disability Inclusion
Our mission is unleashing the power of all our people and we are proud to be a disability inclusive employer, ensuring equal employment opportunities for all candidates. We encourage you to put your best self forward with the knowledge and trust that we will make any reasonable adjustments to support your application and future career. Your journey with Pfizer starts here!
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