Principal Software Engineering Lead

October 5, 2026

Hybrid

Lead

Barcelona, Spain

May rule you out

Work authorization required

Worth knowing

English is required

Description

A health tech business within a large pharmaceutical group is hiring a Principal Software Engineering Lead for the Clinical Trial Site and Investigator product areas of its Unified Trial Solution. This is a hands-on engineering leadership role that involves writing and reviewing code, owning architectural decisions and leading a multi-squad engineering organization. The position combines more than 50% time in the codebase with team development, cross-functional collaboration and technical strategy, including driving an AI-native engineering culture. Delivery follows agile methodologies with quarterly program increments under a hybrid working model.

Responsibilities

Review pull requests, provide code-level feedback, and enforce engineering quality standards
Own architectural decisions across APIs, data models, service boundaries, and infrastructure
Write production-ready code for complex and foundational platform components
Partner with engineers to solve challenging technical problems while coaching and mentoring
Drive adoption of AI-assisted development tools, workflows, and best practices
Define and maintain standards for testing, CI/CD, observability, and deployment practices
Integrate AI tools into daily software development workflows
Evaluate and implement AI capabilities across Clinical Trial Site and Investigator products
Ensure AI-generated code is reviewed, tested, and held to the same quality standards as human-written code
Stay current with advancements in AI-assisted development and translate them into practical team improvements
Lead, mentor, and develop a multi-squad engineering organization
Build technical leadership capability within squad leads and senior engineers
Conduct technical interviews and assess candidates' engineering capabilities
Foster a culture of continuous improvement, psychological safety, and accountability
Manage performance through clear expectations focused on quality, impact, and delivery
Partner closely with Product Owners, Product Managers, Design, Clinical Operations, and other stakeholders
Translate clinical and business needs into scalable technical solutions
Provide technical insight on prioritization, architecture, risk, and long-term maintainability
Influence product direction through data, experimentation, clinical understanding, and engineering expertise
Drive predictable, high-quality delivery against quarterly objectives
Collaborate across the Unified Trial Solution organization to ensure architectural consistency and platform reuse

Requirements

8+ years of professional software engineering experience with a proven record of delivering production systems
3+ years of experience leading engineering teams while remaining hands-on with software development
Deep expertise in at least one of the following technology stacks: React / React Native, Node.js, Java, AWS Cloud Services
Strong architectural leadership across frontend, backend, and infrastructure components
Practical experience using AI-assisted development tools such as GitHub Copilot, Claude, Cursor, or similar technologies
Strong understanding of Agile delivery methodologies, including Scrum, Kanban, or SAFe
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent experience
Experience delivering AI/ML capabilities in production environments, including LLM-powered or agentic AI solutions
Experience building software for healthcare professionals, clinical researchers, clinical trial operations, or site-facing applications
Familiarity with regulated software development environments, including GxP and SaMD
Experience with remote patient monitoring solutions and clinician-facing data visualizations
Contributions to open-source projects or demonstrated technical thought leadership
Clinical research industry experience

Conditions

Hybrid working model with a minimum of three days per week in the office
Quarterly program increments delivered using agile methodologies

Similar jobs

Similar in meaning, not just matching keywords

This device does not meet the site requirements

What may not work

Principal Software Engineering Lead

Job summary

May rule you out

Worth knowing

Description

Responsibilities

Requirements

Conditions

Similar jobs

Job summary

Similar jobs

Principal Software Engineering Lead

Job summaryAnalysis and summary of the descriptionGood [data-chart=chart-_R_39f1binpfiv6abqaqlb_] { --color-score: var(--warning); } .dark [data-chart=chart-_R_39f1binpfiv6abqaqlb_] { --color-score: var(--warning); } 62

Job summary

May rule you out

Worth knowing

Description

Responsibilities

Requirements

Conditions

Similar jobs

Job summaryAnalysis and summary of the descriptionGood [data-chart=chart-_R_39f1binpfiv6abqaqlb_] { --color-score: var(--warning); } .dark [data-chart=chart-_R_39f1binpfiv6abqaqlb_] { --color-score: var(--warning); } 62

Job summary

Similar jobs