GSK · 13 hours ago
Staff Application Engineer
Cambridge, MA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$171K/yr - $285K/yr
7+ years expGSK is a global biopharma company focused on uniting science, technology, and talent to combat diseases. The Staff Application Engineer role involves leading architecture and systems design for data-driven cloud applications and mentoring engineers to enhance their technical capabilities.
BiotechnologyHealth CarePharmaceutical
Responsibilities
Lead architecture and systems design for full-stack, data-driven, loosely coupled cloud applications; make pragmatic trade-offs that balance speed, quality, and long-term stability
Take poorly defined, high-ambiguity problems and drive them to a clear specification and execution plan; deliver solutions with cross-organizational impact and value
Own end-to-end delivery of large, strategic engineering initiatives, often crossing collective boundaries; ensure alignment to agreed target architectures and standards
Write high-quality, well-tested code and documentation; produce proposals, runbooks, and operational playbooks that enable clarity, maintenance, and scaling
Champion operational excellence: design for reliability and security, implement comprehensive observability (metrics, logs, traces), and ensure robust alerting and SLOs
Operate and support production systems: participate in on-call, lead incident resolution when needed, perform root-cause analysis, and drive durable follow-ups that reduce risk
Proactively refactor and simplify complex systems; repay technical debt with intent and measurable outcomes; improve performance, scalability, and cost efficiency
Develop APIs (REST/GraphQL/gRPC) and integration contracts that are resilient, secure, and well documented; advocate for consistent patterns across teams
Collaborate closely with product, design, data science, compliance/risk, and platform teams to align architectural decisions with user needs and organizational strategy
Mentor and sponsor engineers across teams (including senior engineers): raise coding standards, guide design choices, and help others navigate trade-offs and delivery
Elevate engineering practices across Onyx: standard-bearer for code reviews, test automation, CI/CD, accessibility, performance, and security-first design
Use data to inform decisions; introduce monitoring where needed to improve product and operational outcomes; communicate risk clearly to non-technical stakeholders
Stay current with relevant technologies (cloud-native services, data platforms, front-end frameworks); bring strategic insights that shape area-level technology direction
Contribute to cross-team initiatives that improve ways of working, incident management, support processes, and the overall quality bar for Onyx Application Engineering
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's degree in computer science or related field, or equivalent experience
7+ years of experience delivering complex, production-grade, cloud applications at scale
Experience with backend language and ecosystem (e.g., Python, Java, Scala, JavaScript/Node.js), including documentation, testing, observability, and operations
Proficiency in front-end technologies: JavaScript/TypeScript with React.js, Angular, or similar frameworks
Experience designing and building APIs (REST/GraphQL/gRPC); solid understanding of integration patterns and interoperability
Cloud experience developing and deploying in environments like Google Cloud (preferred), AWS, or Azure; hands-on with cloud-native services and infrastructure-as-code patterns
Experience with authentication and authorization mechanisms (e.g., OAuth2, OIDC); security-first mindset throughout the SDLC
Experience with modern SDLC and DevOps tooling: git/GitHub, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, containerization/orchestration, metrics/monitoring (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, OpenTelemetry)
Experience in agile software development and common environments such as Jira and Confluence
Preferred
Master's degree or higher in Computer Science or related field
Experience leading large, strategic, complex engineering projects across multiple teams or collectives
Knowledge of database modelling, relational and non-relational data concepts, and SQL; performance tuning and data lifecycle management at scale
Experience with data visualization frameworks (e.g., D3.js, Plotly, Matplotlib) and building scientific data experiences
Evidence of embedding operational excellence (runbooks, on-call discipline, SLOs, post-incident learning) across teams
Familiarity with regulated environments and collaboration with compliance/security functions
Demonstrated ability to lead architectural designs for complex systems, drive cross-team solutions, and deliver measurable improvements in reliability, performance, and scalability
Proven ability to debug and resolve complex production issues under pressure; leads incident resolution and drives durable prevention
Excellent communication skills (verbal and written); can articulate technical risk and decisions to technical and non-technical stakeholders; collaborates effectively across disciplines
Track record of mentoring engineers and elevating team standards and ways of working
Benefits
Annual bonus
Eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program
Health care and other insurance benefits (for employee and family)
Retirement benefits
Paid holidays
Vacation
Paid caregiver/parental and medical leave
Company
GSK
We are uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. Our community guidelines: https://gsk.to/socialmedia
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
GSK has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (45)
2024 (56)
2023 (54)
2022 (53)
2021 (54)
2020 (72)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$25.51MKey Investors
CARB-X
2021-03-02Grant· $18M
2020-09-23Grant· $7.51M
1978-01-13IPO
Leadership Team
Julie Brown
CFO
Mike Elmore
SVP & Chief Information Security Officer, GSK
Recent News
South China Morning Post
2026-01-08
2026-01-07
Company data provided by crunchbase