Associate Director (m/f/d), DevOps & Software Engineering, Computational Pathology

Description

The company discovers, develops and commercializes prescription medicines for some of the world's most serious diseases, and is one of the largest pharmaceutical firms globally.

The Munich site hosts the Computational Pathology team, one of more than 400 sites of the company.

The team is small and builds regulated software components for computational pathology, covering data management, model training and inference, and analysis tools.

Much of this work falls under GxP rules, and some parts count as Software as a Medical Device (SaMD).

The components plug into existing enterprise and clinical platforms rather than running as standalone systems.

This is a senior individual contributor role. You own the team's DevOps work and also act as a regular engineer, reviewing pull requests (mostly Python) and building features and fixes under the technical leads' direction.

Responsibilities

• Maintain and improve the shared GitHub Actions platform so it stays dependable, easy to keep up and simple for each repository to adopt. The stack is mostly Python, so you need firm knowledge of its packaging and tooling. Occasionally extend the platform to other stacks.
• Review pull requests regularly. Design, build and test features and fixes in the team's Python codebases within the architecture set by the technical leads. Teach colleagues with scientific backgrounds solid software engineering practice.
• Set up delivery across dev, SIT and prod using GitHub environments and approvals, including container image publishing and deployment to integrated platforms such as Kubeflow, Domino Data Lab and AWS-native services.
• Take ownership of SBOM generation, vulnerability and license scanning, and static analysis. Build a sustainable, risk-based vulnerability triage process that will hold up in an audit.
• Manage cloud resources, runners and environments, along with repository, access and quality-gate settings, as code. Keep it consistent, reproducible and auditable, using the simplest mechanism team members can easily contribute to, within central IT's platforms and guardrails.
• With Quality and CSV colleagues, build pipelines that automatically produce the evidence GxP and medical-device processes require, including test reports, traceability, release records and change history, aligned with IEC 62304, ISO 13485, ISO 14971, GAMP 5 and 21 CFR Part 11 / EU Annex 11. Provide technical evidence for audits and inspections.
• Act as the team's technical contact for central IT, cloud and platform teams, cybersecurity and enterprise architecture. Drive tool approvals, network and access requirements, runner and secrets infrastructure, and justified exceptions. Reduce local workarounds over time.
• Document the platform and share knowledge so DevOps capability does not rest on one person.

Requirements

• A degree in computer science, software engineering or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 7+ years in industry, with substantial hands-on ownership of CI/CD and release engineering for production software.
• Expert knowledge of GitHub Actions, including reusable workflows and actions shared across many repositories.
• Strong Python skills. You write idiomatic, pragmatic code and prefer simple, readable solutions. You understand packaging, dependency management and distribution, such as wheels, lock files and private package indexes. You are comfortable with Bash.
• A track record of building software, not only infrastructure: tested, maintainable production code and code review within a development team.
• Practical experience with containers, SBOMs, vulnerability scanning and static analysis.
• Experience delivering software in a regulated environment such as GxP, medical devices or a comparable regime, and turning compliance requirements into practical engineering processes.
• A can-do attitude. When progress is blocked by technical limits, tooling or organizational constraints, you find a way through, even if the first fix is pragmatic, and then make it sustainable.
• A proven ability to deliver in a large organization with central IT and security governance, through influence, relationship building and persistence.
• Excellent written and spoken English, able to explain technical trade-offs to quality, IT and scientific stakeholders.
• Preferred: Terraform or other infrastructure-as-code tools.
• Preferred: JFrog Artifactory, secrets management platforms (e.g. Akeyless), OIDC-based cloud authentication and GitHub Apps.
• Preferred: deploying and operating applications on AWS services, plus Kubernetes, Helm and Argo CD.
• Preferred: modern Python tooling such as uv, ruff, mypy and pytest.
• Preferred: JavaScript or TypeScript in the context of GitHub Actions.
• Preferred: using AI coding agents (e.g. Claude Code, GitHub Copilot) in day-to-day engineering work.
• Preferred: SaMD and IEC 62304 lifecycle documentation, or MLOps and ML model deployment experience.
• Preferred: experience in life sciences, healthcare or medical imaging.
• Preferred: open source contributions.

Conditions

The role is based in Munich, Germany.

The Alps are close by for hiking, biking and skiing.

The company welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of their characteristics and follows applicable non-discrimination, work authorization and employment eligibility laws.

Benefits

• Individual development opportunities with a focus on lifelong learning.
• After-work events, lunch and learns, and company events.
• Family and childcare support.
• Modern, spacious and sustainable office space in Munich for collaborative, flexible and agile work.
• Trust, appreciation and room to shape the work in a focused team.
• A diverse, inclusive and bias-free work environment.