Senior Principal Developer – R & Shiny Specialist

About the role

Novartis is seeking a Senior Principal Developer to lead the creation of R packages and Shiny applications that empower clinical trial teams. You will work closely with statistical programmers, statisticians, and clinical reporting groups to deliver robust, reproducible data‑engineering and analytics solutions.

Key responsibilities

• Design, develop, and maintain production‑grade R packages supporting data manipulation, statistical analysis, automation, and reporting.
• Build and deploy interactive Shiny dashboards for data exploration and visualization.
• Collaborate with cross‑functional teams to translate requirements into efficient, reproducible code.
• Apply responsible AI techniques to enhance product design and developer productivity.
• Lead tooling roll‑outs through demos, pilots, training, and ongoing support.
• Gather user feedback to drive continuous improvement and modernization.
• Champion best practices in data science, software development, and documentation.
• Engage with open‑source communities relevant to the pharmaceutical sector.

Required profile

• Master’s degree in a quantitative or computational science or equivalent.
• Extensive experience as an R developer, including production‑grade package development.
• Strong background in software development best practices (virtual environments, Git, CI/CD, code review).
• Hands‑on experience deploying and maintaining R/Shiny applications in production.
• Demonstrated ability to apply AI/agentic approaches to data‑driven applications.
• Solution‑oriented mindset with excellent collaboration skills.
• Fluent written English.

Required skills

• R programming
• Tidyverse data manipulation
• ggplot2 and plotly for visualization
• Shiny application development and deployment
• CI/CD pipelines
• Git version control
• Virtual environment management
• AI and agentic productivity tools
• Quarto, workflow automation, metadata‑driven reporting (desirable)

What we offer

• Competitive annual base salary (£57,050 – £105,950) with performance‑based bonus potential.
• Comprehensive benefits package including insurance, retirement plans, and wellbeing resources.
• Opportunities to contribute to open‑source projects and shape modern data‑science tooling in a leading pharmaceutical company.