ROLE SUMMARY About the Team Forward Impact Engineering and Engagement Teams deliver rapid outcomes by experimenting, learning fast, and proving what works—moving ideas quickly from concept to validated solution. Within Forward Impact Engineering, the Core Technology team is the technical backbone for Forward Impact Teams (FITs). The team provides “one place, one click, enterprise-grade guardrails” for innovation, giving FITs a simple, safe way to spin up environments and build prototypes in hours, not weeks. Core Technology’s mission is not to build a monolithic enterprise platform, but to assemble a flexible, evolving set of building blocks and patterns that make experimentation easy, compliant, and repeatable. About the Role The Director, Principal Engineer – Cloud Engineering Lead is the lead engineer responsible for designing and implementing the core technical innovation platform that powers FIT teamwork. The initial stack is based on AWS, Cloudflare, Supabase, AWS Bedrock, Langchain, Azure Foundary and N8N, with Docker and Terraform as key implementation technologies. However, none of these are sacred; the role is explicitly accountable for evolving the stack as new tools, services and patterns & needs emerge. This role is first and foremost about enabling rapid prototyping: Giving FIT teams high-leverage primitives (templates, workflows, scaffolding, patterns) so they can build quickly on N8N, Supabase, Cloudflare, and related tools. Providing the right level of reliability, security and compliance for innovation workloads – robust and safe, but not over-engineered for enterprise scale. Constantly experimenting with new technologies to see what should be added, changed, or retired in the core platform. The ideal candidate is a deeply hands-on principal engineer who has built modern cloud platforms and internal developer platforms for fast-moving teams, is highly comfortable with change and incomplete requirements, and designs systems for optionality and “easy replaceability” rather than rigidity. ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES 1. Platform Architecture for Fast Prototyping Implement and design the technical architecture of the Core Technology innovation platform, with AWS as the primary cloud provider and Cloudflare as the edge/runtime layer, supporting rapid FIT team prototyping. Design a lightweight, modular, technology-agnostic architecture that makes it easy to stand up and tear down per-FIT or per-experiment environments using Supabase, N8N and other managed services. Define simple, reusable “patterns” for common experiment types (e.g., workflow automations, API-based services, small web apps, data-backed prototypes) that minimize boilerplate for FIT teams. Favour managed or packaged services and opinionated defaults over bespoke frameworks, to keep the platform small, easy to evolve, and quick to learn. Intentionally avoid premature over-hardening: design for “safe-by-default and flexible,” not “heavy enterprise platform” – but with a clear path to scale for the experiments that prove successful partnering with our commercial creation centres for scale. 2. Hands-On Engineering & Delivery Be a highly hands-on engineer: prototype, build and iterate on the platform orchestrator, environment provisioning, deployment automation, and integration with identity and networking. Implement infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform) and CI/CD pipelines that allow FIT teams and Core Tech engineers to stand up new experiments with minimal friction. Work closely with DevOps and Platform Operations colleagues to ensure the platform is operable, observable and easy to support, even as it changes rapidly. 3. Experimentation & Emerging Technologies Continuously scan and experiment with new tools, frameworks and services relevant to FIT needs (e.g., new workflow engines, BaaS options, edge runtimes, AI/LLM frameworks). Run technical spikes and small proofs-of-concept to assess new technologies for inclusion in the platform, with clear criteria and recommendations. Design safe “sandbox lanes” in the platform for trying out new tech with real workloads while appropriately limiting risk. Make deliberate decisions about when to adopt, standardise, or retire technologies, and communicate these decisions clearly to the FIT community. 4. Reliability, Security & Guardrails (Right-Sized for Innovation) Define and implement right-sized SLA’s for innovation workloads (e.g., strong business-hours reliability rather than 24/7 mission-critical guarantees, where appropriate). Embed security and compliance guardrails directly into our patterns: identity and access patterns, secrets management, network isolation, data protection, and audit trails. Use automation and sensible defaults (e.g., secure base templates, pre-approved connectors, limited data scopes) to keep FIT teams safe without heavy governance processes. 5. Developer Experience & Enablement Design the platform from a developer-first perspective: low cognitive load, clear documentation, discoverable examples, and self-service capabilities. Collaborate with Developer Experience teams to co-design onboarding flows, documentation, training, and tooling around the platform. 6. Collaboration & Influence Collaborate across FIT to ensure the platform is coherent and simple for FIT teams to consume. 7. Lifecycle & Transition Readiness Design the platform so that successful experiments can transition smoothly out of the innovation space into more hardened enterprise environments (e.g., Creation Centers) when appropriate. Document the minimum technical, security and operational criteria that experiments must meet to be considered for scale-up, while keeping the innovation lane as light as possible. Provide clear technical artefacts (reference architectures, runbooks, decision records) that support handover, without burdening all experiments with enterprise-level requirements. 8. Technical Leadership & Mentoring Provide strong technical leadership to contractors and engineers working on the innovation platform, setting high standards for code quality, simplicity and automation. Mentor senior engineers and architects in modern cloud-native, platform engineering and experimentation practices. Model an experiment-driven, learning-oriented culture: encourage rapid iteration, safe failure, and thoughtful pruning of complexity. BASIC QUALIFICATIONS Education & Experience Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience. Strong experience in software, platform or cloud engineering roles, with substantial hands-on work building on public cloud (preferably AWS). Strong experience in senior/principal/staff engineer roles owning architecture and delivery of complex or multi-team platforms or systems. Technical Expertise Deep experience designing and operating cloud-based platforms and services on AWS (networking, security, compute, storage, IAM). Strong background in containerized, serverless and/or edge-native architectures (e.g., Docker, ECS/EKS, Lambda, Cloudflare Workers). Hands-on experience with infrastructure-as-code (e.g., Terraform) and CI/CD pipelines, ideally in environments that favour rapid iteration and experimentation. Practical experience with one or more of Supabase (or similar BaaS), N8N (or similar workflow automation tools), and Cloudflare (or comparable edge/CDN platforms). Familiarity with LLMs and/or agentic AI frameworks, including how to integrate them into secure, observable systems, is a plus. Strong understanding of security and compliance fundamentals and how to encode them into platform patterns and templates rather than manual processes. Leadership, Collaboration & Mindset Proven ability to design and deliver platforms that enable fast-moving product/innovation teams, internal labs, or startup environments. Own the Quality: Defines enterprise accountability standards; shapes industry practices around AI code verification and quality ownership; sponsors transformational initiatives with full outcome accountability; recognized externally for ownership culture leadership Think in Systems: Defines enterprise-wide systems architecture principles; recognized industry authority on complex systems; advises leadership on systemic risks and opportunities; publishes thought leadership on systems thinking in technology organizations Be Polymath Oriented: Bridges gaps between engineering, design, business, and science; rapidly immerses in new domains; speaks the language of Commercial, Manufacturing, or R&D; makes better decisions by understanding broader context Communicate with Precision: Separates requirements, designs, and tasks with precision; enables AI to generate accurate code through clear specifications; translates between technical and business language; facilitates productive discussions PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS Advanced degree (Master’s, PhD) in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field. Experience building internal developer platforms or innovation platforms for multiple squads/teams. Background working in innovation labs, incubators, or “fast lane” environments within larger enterprises, especially in regulated industries. Demonstrated experience moving successful prototypes into more robust, scaled environments in partnership with other platform or product teams. Work Location Assignment: Hybrid Purpose Breakthroughs that change patients' lives At Pfizer we are a patient centric company, guided by our four values: courage, joy, equity and excellence. Our breakthrough culture lends itself to our dedication to transforming millions of lives. Digital Transformation Strategy One bold way we are achieving our purpose is through our company wide digital transformation strategy. We are leading the way in adopting new data, modelling and automated solutions to further digitize and accelerate drug discovery and development with the aim of enhancing health outcomes and the patient experience. Flexibility We aim to create a trusting, flexible workplace culture which encourages employees to achieve work life harmony, attracts talent and enables everyone to be their best working self. Let’s start the conversation! Equal Employment Opportunity We believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce is crucial to building a successful business. As an employer, Pfizer is committed to celebrating this, in all its forms – allowing for us to be as diverse as the patients and communities we serve. Together, we continue to build a culture that encourages, supports and empowers our employees. DisAbility Confident We are proud to be a Disability Confident Employer and we encourage you to put your best self forward with the knowledge and trust that we will make any reasonable adjustments necessary to support your application and future career. Our mission is unleashing the power of our people, especially those with unique superpowers. Your journey with Pfizer starts here! Information & Business Tech