Director, AI Engineering - Evinova

Location: Cambridge, UK

Competitive Salary & Excellent Company Benefits

On average, it takes more than 10 years to develop a drug and costs over $1.3 billion. Over 70% of drug R&D expenses are spent on clinical development, yet the success rate from phase I to approval is only around 10%. At Evinova, a new health tech business within the AstraZeneca Group, we aim to increase clinical trial success rates by 20%, accelerate development timelines by 36 months, and reduce study costs by 50% through cutting-edge AI and Machine Learning.

If you are a skilled coder with hands-on experience developing AI agentic solutions, a good understanding of modern deep learning, strong AWS skills, and a passion for learning, you could be a great fit for our team. Ambition to grow into a leadership role is a key differentiator. We especially welcome those who challenge the status quo.

We are seeking a Director of AI Engineering to lead our AI and ML development efforts. This role involves driving hands-on development from prototyping to production, designing complex AI agents, communication architectures, and automating the design and evaluation of agentic systems. Additionally, this role oversees traditional deep learning models, including design, training, evaluation, and fine-tuning LLMs. The role involves collaboration with product, design, engineering, MLops, and domain experts. We believe in the power of diverse, collaborative teams to inspire innovative medicines. Our in-person work model involves a minimum of three days per week in the office to facilitate connection, pace, and challenge perceptions.

WHAT THE ROLE INVOLVES

This is a hands-on role, with at least 80% of your time expected to be spent coding. You will:

• Lead the design, development, and deployment of advanced agentic AI applications for life sciences and health tech challenges.
• Develop automated techniques for designing and evaluating agentic systems.
• Ideate, develop, and evaluate tools for agents, such as search, memory, context compression, and communication architectures.
• Design observability pipelines for prototypes and production AI systems.
• Create bespoke deep learning models, from design to deployment.
• Fine-tune large language models.
• Mentor and develop the technical skills of the AI team, fostering innovation and best practices.
• Lead a portfolio of impactful AI projects.
• Make architecture decisions and guide multidisciplinary teams through the AI lifecycle.
• Deliver production-ready code.
• Collaborate across teams to align AI initiatives with business goals and drive digital transformation.
• Represent the company's AI expertise at conferences, publications, and industry events.

SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES NEEDED

Qualifications:

• Ph.D. or equivalent in relevant fields such as mathematics, computer science, or data science.
• 5+ years of applied machine learning experience, focusing on deep learning, NLP, and generative AI.
• Proven record of developing innovative AI solutions with significant business impact.
• Experience exploring and testing large language model behavior, prompting, and product development.
• Expertise in Python and frameworks like TensorFlow, PyTorch, LangChain, LlamaIndex, etc.
• Deep understanding of agentic AI concepts and frameworks, especially in healthcare.
• Experience training and fine-tuning large language models, including hands-on with DeepSpeed.
• Extensive AWS experience (SageMaker, Bedrock, MSK, EKS, OpenSearch).
• Proven ability to ship production-level code following best practices.
• Experience with containerization, CI/CD, web application development.
• Excellent communication skills, with experience presenting to leadership and partners.
• Leadership experience in guiding multi-functional teams.

Desirable Skills/Experience:

• TypeScript, AWS CDK, low-level high-performance ML programming (C/C++, Rust, CUDA).
• Contributions to open-source AI projects or proprietary frameworks.
• Expertise in reinforcement learning, few-shot learning, meta-learning, Causal AI.
• Knowledge of drug development or experience in the pharmaceutical industry is a plus but not required.

WHY EVINOVA (AstraZeneca)?

Evinova leverages AstraZeneca's experience in therapeutics, aiming to accelerate medicine delivery, improve clinical trial design, and foster holistic patient care. We seek to unify digital solutions across the healthcare sector, building innovative health tech to serve patients and professionals better. Join us in transforming the future of healthcare with AI and digital innovation.

WHAT'S NEXT?

If you're excited about this opportunity, we look forward to hearing from you. Closing date for applications: 1st June.

WHERE CAN I FIND OUT MORE?

Follow Evinova on LinkedIn or visit evinova.com. Our mission emphasizes an inclusive, equitable environment. We welcome all qualified candidates and offer accommodations for applicants with needs.