Head of Engineering DIA R&D
About The Position
As a Head of Engineering in Diagnostics (DIA) R&D at Roche, you will lead teams responsible for building the engineering foundation for scientific advancements and for the development of your people. Your primary responsibility will be to guide your team members in shaping their career paths, removing obstacles, and setting clear goals for effective performance management. You will oversee software and service delivery with a focus on clearing impediments, managing stakeholders, and enhancing team collaboration efficiencies. You will architect and deliver the next generation of DIA R&D engineering capabilities, leading teams that integrate advanced AI and ML, laboratory informatics infrastructure, and computational science. You will develop engineers capable of navigating the complex intersection of biology, chemistry, and technology, from LIMS and ELN systems to agentic AI and cloud-scale data platforms. Additionally, you will drive technical excellence and pace while upholding the rigorous compliance standards essential for Diagnostics R&D.
Requirements
- A bachelor’s or advanced degree, typically in an engineering, IT or business discipline.
- 10+ years in software and platform engineering, including 5+ years leading cross-functional technical teams, with managers as well as engineers reporting to you.
- 5+ years in pharmaceutical R&D, biotech, diagnostics or another regulated life sciences environment, with a working command of GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, GAMP 5 and risk-based validation.
- 3+ years leading AI/ML engineering teams, with systems you’ve taken to production at scale rather than pilots: LLM-based platforms, MLOps frameworks such as MLflow or SageMaker, vector databases and RAG workflows among them.
- Hands-on experience with laboratory informatics platforms such as Sapio, Benchling or LabVantage, instrument integration, scientific computing environments (HPC and GPU infrastructure) and data standards such as FAIR and CDISC.
- Deep expertise across cloud platforms (AWS, Azure or GCP), microservices, API design, containerisation (Docker and Kubernetes) and GitOps, with the standing to lead serious modernisation work.
- Strong business sense and genuine executive presence.
- You lead through others, coaching as much as deciding; you’re comfortable with ambiguity, and you can translate technical investment into business value that non-technical leaders can see.
Responsibilities
- Build the engineering strengths the function will need next, and coach your people through the long arc of their careers, including the systemic roadblocks that hold whole teams back.
- Co-create the long-term technical direction and strategy for the computational science and AI/ML platform portfolio.
- Define the platform architecture for AI/ML infrastructure (model deployment, MLOps, vector databases), scientific computing (HPC and cloud compute), laboratory informatics (LIMS and ELN integration) and the data platforms beneath them.
- Take accountability for how the portfolio performs in production, holding the line on quality, reliability and the performance SLAs people depend on.
- Direct technical priorities across a portfolio that spans AI solutions, bioinformatics pipelines, laboratory systems and data infrastructure, keeping the architecture coherent and free of duplication.
- Build the relationships that make engineering possible here, with research leadership, IT infrastructure, Quality and Compliance, enterprise architecture and cloud platform teams, and align priorities and resources across them.
- Improve how the teams build, from CI/CD pipelines for validated systems to infrastructure-as-code, automated testing and model deployment.
- Manage the team’s budget, including headcount, operating costs and vendor contracts, and make the trade-offs that put resources where they matter most.
Benefits
- Annual bonus payment based on your performance (target 20%)
- Car or Car Allowance
- Private healthcare ( LuxMed packages)
- Group life insurance (UNUM)
- Multisport
- Recharge Fridays (2 Fridays off per quarter)
- Take Time Program (up to 3 months of leave to use for any purpose)
- Flex Location (possibility to perform our work from different places in the world for a certain period of time)
- Take Time for Charity (additional paid leave of maximum 2 weeks to engage in the charity action of your choice)
- Stock share purchase additions
- Yearly sales of company equipment
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Manager
