Lead Software Engineer

At Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) – it all starts with animals! As a global leader in animal health, we are dedicated to innovation and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets. We’re driven by our vision of ‘Food and Companionship Enriching Life’ and our approach to sustainability – the Elanco Healthy Purpose™ – to advance the health of animals, people, the planet and our enterprise. At Elanco, we pride ourselves on fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is the driving force behind innovation, creativity, and overall business success. Here, you’ll be part of a company that values and champions new ways of thinking, work with dynamic individuals, and acquire new skills and experiences that will propel your career to new heights. Making animals’ lives better makes life better – join our team today! Software Engineering and Platforms    Location: UK - Hook (Hybrid) Team: Software Engineering & Platforms  Supervisor: IT Engineering Director    Position Description:   Over the past 4 years Elanco IT has been on an incredibly exciting journey. Separating from our parent company and standing up on our own gave us a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a modern technology stack free of the burden of large-scale technical debt. We are now looking to take this one step further, leveraging newly established engineering capabilities to help Elanco deliver on customer needs faster than ever before.    This role is part of our new enterprise platform engineering team focused on driving secure, reliable, efficient practice across our business and IT teams. This role will engage in the build, and iteration of our advanced cloud automation patterns, as well as developing solutions to automate manual process across business and IT. This is an incredibly exciting opportunity to not only work with the latest toolsets but to contribute to the continued growth of a new highly skilled engineering organisation. The role is great for the AI passionate who would like to explore further the possibilities AI world has opened. In the organisation we have recently stood up AI capabilities and looking for an engineer with interest in this area.    To be successful in an engineering role in Elanco requires a highly motivated individual, with an innovative mindset and a willingness to drive tangible outcomes. The individual must be able to articulate complex technical topics, collaborate with external partners and ensure quality delivery of the required solution.     Responsibilities:  Engineering:  * Collaborate with the Principal Platform Engineer and Product Owner to help drive the direction of platform and automation capabilities.  * Work with a diverse team on some of Elanco’s most exciting engineering initiatives, ensuring security, reliability, and efficiency using the latest technology.  * Stay abreast of the latest IT trends and technologies, and apply this knowledge to drive continuous improvement and innovation within the team.  * Identify and pursue continuous improvement opportunities in our core ecosystem to enhance application team and developer experience.  * Work across the engineering team, understanding experiences from both application and operational engineering team perspectives.  * Communicate progress, results, and insights to management and other stakeholders.  * Provide coaching and mentoring to cultivate development and continuous growth within the team.    Daily / Monthly Responsibilities:  * Manage and support product backlog ensuring robust integration into standard incident processes as the products mature.  * Work with distributed teams across the business to facilitate the adoption of Platforms core capabilities.  * Engage in hands-on coding, building, governance, and maintenance.  * Deliver high-quality technical outputs as part of a scrum team.  * Design and build solutions to automate manual IT and business processes.  * Employ Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) techniques to modernize software development processes.  * Establish strong partnerships with key service integrators (vendors) to support automation capability adoption.  * Collaborate with the application health program and Information Security to identify opportunities and mitigate risks.  * Coach and mentor junior engineers and participants in our student program to build a strong, connected organization.  * Support application teams, both internal and external, by resolving barriers related to the building, deployment, and utilization of engineering products.    Basic Qualifications:  Must Have:  * Proven experience in programming languages such as Typescript, along with a strong background in either Python/Typescript.  * Willingness to learn, AI/ML frameworks like TensorFlow and PyTorch (prior in-depth experience is not necessary).  * A passion for AI and the eagerness to stay current with the latest AI research, trends, and technologies.  * Operational experience ensuring internal products are well-maintained, supported, and iterated upon.  * Experience working within a DevOps team and familiarity with modern software development practices, including CI/CD, TDD, and SDLC.  * Ability to communicate effectively with both technical and non-technical team members to encourage the adoption of new software versions or products.  * Familiarity with working within an agile team.   * Experience defining and implementing large-scale, transformative digital solutions.  * Demonstrated influence and communication skills across all levels of IT and third parties.  * Strong organizational and communications skills with multiple examples of being able to convey complex technical topics, that resulted in a definitive direction.   * Proven Experience in Delivering Software Products    * Excellent communication skills     Nice to Have:  * Experience with AI and machine learning frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.).  * Proficiency in AI domains like neural networks, NLP, and computer vision.  * Experience deploying AI solutions in real-world applications.  * Familiarity with cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, Google Cloud) and AI tools.  * Hands-on technical experience with core technologies such as Terraform, Ansible, and Packer.  * Knowledge of cloud cognitive services (e.g., Azure Cloud Vision, Google Vision AI).  * Experience working with AI/Embeddings technologies (e.g., Google Matching Engine, Azure AI Studio, Vertex AI).  * Proven experience designing, building, and managing data pipelines and processing documents (e.g., using Google Cloud Fusion or Azure Data Factory).  * Familiarity with authentication and authorization protocols/patterns.  * Experience supporting digital platforms, including integrations, release management, regression testing, integrations, and data obfuscation.    Other Information:  * Occasional travel may be required.  Elanco is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status