Senior Developer

About PharmaLedger Association

PharmaLedger Association (PLA) builds trusted digital products with healthcare and technology stakeholders. Our Product Trust Platform (PTP) connects pharmaceutical organisations, partners and patients through shared digital capabilities.

The role

You will be a hands-on senior developer with strong ownership of PTP features and technical architecture. You will independently turn product needs into working software, make sound engineering decisions and take responsibility for quality from design through production.

You will resolve ambiguity, explain trade-offs and keep delivery moving with limited day-to-day direction.

Your focus combines feature delivery, architectural leadership and effective engineering operations, with AI supporting engineering productivity. The expected split is:

Feature development 50%

• Own features end to end: clarify requirements, break down work, estimate effort and deliver tested, maintainable software through deployment and operational handover.

• Build and improve PTP applications, APIs and integrations. Resolve complex defects and use prototypes to test uncertain assumptions.

• Balance user value, scope and technical effort with product colleagues. Surface risks early, propose options and follow through on agreed outcomes.

Architecture engineering processes and DevOps 30%

• Guide PTP architecture across service boundaries, data models, interfaces and shared components. Make pragmatic technical decisions, document significant trade-offs and balance immediate needs with long-term maintainability.

• Improve testing, code review, development standards and release processes. Mentor engineers, coordinate technical contributions and address technical debt and recurring delivery bottlenecks.

• Strengthen CI/CD, environment configuration, deployment automation, observability and production support. Build security, privacy, reliability and appropriate quality evidence into the development lifecycle.

AI enabled development 20%

• Apply and evaluate AI tools for coding, testing, refactoring, documentation and debugging. Establish reusable practices where they demonstrably improve delivery or engineering quality.

• Validate generated work through review and testing, protect confidential data and retain accountability for production changes. Share effective approaches and assess results through time saved, review effort and defect rates.

Independence and decision making

As a senior individual contributor and technical lead, you identify what needs doing and execute independently within agreed priorities and standards. You own implementation choices and technical quality. Seek input where it improves decisions, and escalate material risks or decisions with wider platform, cost or security implications.

The VP Product sets product priorities; you advise on feasibility, architecture and technical investment. The Technical Project Manager coordinates planning and delivery; you provide estimates, dependencies and risks. Work with operations and quality colleagues on release readiness and supportability.

What you will bring

• Substantial experience delivering and operating production software, with personal ownership of complex features from problem definition to release.

• Strong architectural judgement across application design, APIs, data models and integrations. You explain alternatives and evolve existing platforms with proportionate solutions.

• A record of working independently: making decisions with incomplete information, prioritising technical work and following through without close supervision.

• Strong software engineering fundamentals in implementation, automated testing, debugging and code review, with the ability to work effectively across an existing stack.

• Practical experience with cloud systems, CI/CD, deployment automation, observability and production troubleshooting, with sound judgement on security, reliability and performance.

• Clear communication and collaborative leadership through constructive feedback, mentoring and shared engineering practices.

• Practical experience using AI development tools, with a clear understanding of their limitations and how to validate their output.

Experience that would be useful

• Healthcare, pharmaceutical or regulated software, including traceable requirements, controlled releases and quality evidence.

• Shared platforms, modular architectures, enterprise integrations or distributed systems; electronic product information, GS1 identifiers, FHIR or traceability systems.

What success looks like

In your first 90 days, you will understand the PTP architecture and key risks, take independent ownership of an agreed feature or meaningful increment, and establish a prioritised plan for engineering and operational improvements.

Over time, success means reliable feature delivery, well-reasoned technical decisions and a platform that is easier to change, operate and understand. Engineering improvements should reduce avoidable defects and release friction. AI should contribute measurable gains while maintaining quality and security.

Location and working arrangement

This is a remote, full-time role based in Europe. Applicants must be based in an EU member state or the UK while performing the role.

Application information

Please include your current city and country, and a brief summary of any experience working in the pharmaceutical sector, in your CV. Pharmaceutical experience is useful but is not mandatory for this role.

Please also include a short response on the final page of your CV to this question:

Based on your knowledge and public research into PharmaLedger Association and its Product Trust Platform, what one aspect of our technology approach would you improve, and why?

Explain the expected benefit and main trade-offs, cite the public sources you used, and distinguish your observations from assumptions about systems you have not seen.