Life Sciences Technical Team Lead (React / Python / AWS) - Remote Contract

Red Kite Resourcing has a superb new opening for an experienced Team Lead with a strong technical background in React / Python and AWS. Initial 6 month contract, with likely extensions. Day rate dependant on experience levels. Role is fully remote, however candidates must be fully resident in Ireland for the duration of the work. Occasional client visits may be requested. Candidates must possess full valid work authorisation for Ireland.

The Tech Lead is responsible for the technical delivery and architectural governance of a Life Sciences platform. This role bridges business requirements and technical execution, ensuring solutions are scalable, compliant with regulatory requirements (FDA, GxP, data integrity standards), and delivered on time. The Tech Lead leads a mid-size engineering team, owns code quality and CICD infrastructure, and serves as the primary escalation point for technical risks and blockers.

Core Technical Skills

• Fullstack development with proven delivery experience

– Frontend: React

– Backend: Python

– Cloud: AWS Services (Lambda, SNS, SQS, EC2, ECS, Fargate, API Gateway)

– Databases: SQL and NoSQL (design, optimization, data integrity)

– CI/CD and Git workflow (pipeline design, automation)

Leadership & Experience

• Minimum 3+ years as a Tech Lead or Senior Engineer — must have delivered at least one end-to-end project from design through production

• Agile experience — comfortable with sprint planning, retrospectives, and iterative delivery

• Life Sciences domain knowledge — familiarity with regulated environments, data governance, and compliance workflows (FDA, GxP, 21 CFR Part 11, data audit trails)

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Data Engineering and AWS Glue

• Docker and containerization

• Experience with regulated software delivery (medical devices, pharma, biotech)

Key Responsibilities1. Business Requirements & Scope Definition

• Participate in Business Requirements Review (BRR) meetings with stakeholders and business analysts

• Clarify requirements and raise technical questions that impact design, compliance, or feasibility

• Identify regulatory constraints (FDA, GxP, data integrity, audit trail requirements) early

• Gather and document non-functional requirements (performance, scalability, security, compliance)

• Escalate scope conflicts or infeasible requirements to the architect and product owner

2. Technical Design & Architecture

• Create task-level technical designs based on business requirements (with architect support as needed)

• Assign tech design creation to developers; review and approve all designs before development begins

• Identify and document technical risks, uncertainties, and mitigation strategies

• Ensure designs comply with Life Sciences regulatory standards and data governance policies

• Own investigation tasks for technologies or patterns outside the current tech scope

• Define coding standards, design patterns, and architectural guardrails for the team

3. Development & Code Quality

• Review code from developers for higher environments (staging, production) — enforce quality standards and compliance

• Conduct code reviews focusing on: correctness, performance, security, testability, and regulatory compliance

• Ensure CICD infrastructure is functioning correctly; troubleshoot pipeline failures

• Manage the development backlog and unblock developers on technical issues

• Contribute to critical-path development only when blocking team progress; prioritize leadership duties

• Ensure all code changes are documented and traceable (audit trail requirements)

4. Testing & Quality Assurance

• Work with the QA team to define test cases, especially for regulatory-critical features

• Assign bugs and defects to developers; prioritize based on severity and compliance impact

• Blocker management: Identify and escalate blockers outside normal development scope:

– Database connectivity and data provisioning issues

– Infrastructure requests (compute, storage, networking)

– Testing environment setup and data requirements

– Regulatory or compliance questions

• Ensure testing data meets Life Sciences standards (data integrity, traceability, audit readiness)

• Validate that all defects are resolved before UAT and production release

5. Compliance & Validation

• Regulatory ownership: Ensure all designs, code, and deployments comply with:

– FDA requirements (if applicable)

– GxP principles (Good Practice standards for Life Sciences)

– 21 CFR Part 11 (electronic records, audit trails)

– Data governance and privacy policies

• Request and track security scans and compliance checks required for release

• Complete and shepherd the Change Request Form through the development lifecycle:

– Requirements phase (impact assessment)

– Tech Design phase (design review)

– Testing phase (test coverage sign-off)

– Validation phase (compliance verification)

– Deployment phase (deployment plan and rollback strategy)

• Maintain audit trail documentation for all changes and decisions

6. Release & Operations

• Manage deployment planning and execution for new releases

• Validate correct deployment to production; verify system health post-deployment

• Own operational support for new releases in the first 2 weeks (bug triage, hotfix prioritization)

• Coordinate with operations and platform teams on production incidents

• Ensure release notes and runbooks are complete and accurate

7. Agile & Team Leadership

• Lead sprint planning from development team, and retrospectives

• Provide feedback on team velocity, blockers, and ways of working

• Mentor developers on technical skills, design patterns, and best practices

• Present completed features and technical achievements to stakeholders and leadership

• Foster a culture of quality, compliance, and continuous improvement