Staff Software Engineer

ROLE SUMMARY
Pfizer is committed to the application of computational science in the areas of drug discovery and development and has recently initiated a large-scale migration of computational infrastructure to cloud. This role leverages extensive experience in scientific computing to deliver robust high-performance solutions supporting computational workloads across the organization.
We are seeking an experienced individual contributor to own project migrations, user support, onboarding, documentation, communication, and training efforts related to the High-Performance Computing (HPC) environment. You will work with a team of engineers to ensure robust, scalable, high-performance cloud native infrastructure that underpins modernization of the scientific computing platform. You will be the primary bridge between our R&D scientists and cloud infrastructure.
Critical business capabilities that utilize Pfizer HPC resources include in silico drug discovery, protein folding/structure prediction, quantum chemistry, bioinformatics, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) modeling, ML/AI, and fluid dynamics. Experience in one or more of these scientific domains is highly desirable.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead solution design and migration strategy for R&D teams transitioning legacy scientific workloads to cloud based HPC platforms, ensuring alignment with performance, scalability, security, and cost objectives.
• Partner with scientific stakeholders to translate research needs into platform level infrastructure requirements, providing senior technical guidance on compute, storage, and parallelization approaches.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for complex HPC operational issues, defining troubleshooting frameworks, escalation paths, and long term remediation strategies for scheduler, dependency, and workflow failures.
• Own the strategy, quality, and governance of HPC documentation and knowledge assets, ensuring documentation remains accurate, accessible, and aligned with platform standards, onboarding needs, and evolving best practices.
• Lead platform level communications and stakeholder engagement related to HPC operations, including maintenance, capacity changes, and upgrades, ensuring transparency, predictability, and minimal disruption to scientific workloads.
• Define and oversee user enablement and training strategy for HPC platforms, ensuring researchers are equipped to use cloud resources efficiently, responsibly, and in accordance with platform best practices.
• Own the end to end lifecycle strategy for scientific software platforms, including selection, deployment models, upgrade planning, and deprecation, to ensure reliability, reproducibility, and broad usability across research domains.
• Establish containerization standards and adoption models for scientific workflows, overseeing the transition of complex applications to container based execution environments and ensuring consistency across teams and platforms.
• Set and govern application performance optimization standards across cloud instance types, guiding workload placement decisions to maximize performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• B.S. with 7+ years or Ph.D. with 3+ years of experience in high performance computing, cloud computing, and life sciences.

• Deep Linux systems expertise supporting the design, standardization, automation, and reliable operation of scientific computing platforms and services.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to clearly communicate complex technical concepts to scientific, technical, and platform stakeholders.

• Demonstrated ability to lead resolution of complex technical issues while providing clear status updates and communication back to scientific stakeholders.

• Deep foundational technical expertise across HPC and cloud platforms, including Linux, Slurm, Kubernetes, GitOps, Google Cloud Platform, Spack, Cluster Toolkit, infrastructure-as-code-tooling, GPU architectures, and related scientific software ecosystems.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced experience with at least one of AWS and GCP, including knowledge of core compute and storage services relevant to HPC.

• Experience designing, operating, or supporting distributed computing environments, including Kubernetes-based environments such as GKE.

• Prior experience with HPC deployment utilities including Google Cluster Toolkit

Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact.
NON-STANDARD WORK SCHEDULE, TRAVEL OR ENVIRONMENT REQUIREMENTS
Occasional travel for internal meetings and conferences.
Relocation support available
Work Location Assignment: Hybrid
The annual base salary for this position ranges from $124,400.00 to $207,400.00. In addition, this position is eligible for participation in Pfizer's Global Performance Plan with a bonus target of 17.5% of the base salary and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program. We offer comprehensive and generous benefits and programs to help our colleagues lead healthy lives and to support each of life's moments. Benefits offered include a 401(k) plan with Pfizer Matching Contributions and an additional Pfizer Retirement Savings Contribution, paid vacation, holiday and personal days, paid caregiver/parental and medical leave, and health benefits to include medical, prescription drug, dental and vision coverage. Learn more at Pfizer Candidate Site - U.S. Benefits | (uscandidates.mypfizerbenefits.com). Pfizer compensation structures and benefit packages are aligned based on the location of hire. The United States salary range provided does not apply to Tampa, FL or any location outside of the United States.
Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility.
Candidates must be authorized to be employed in the U.S. by any employer.
U.S. work visa sponsorship (such as TN, O-1, H-1B, etc.) is not available for this role now or in the future.
Sunshine Act
Pfizer reports payments and other transfers of value to health care providers as required by federal and state transparency laws and implementing regulations. These laws and regulations require Pfizer to provide government agencies with information such as a health care provider's name, address and the type of payments or other value received, generally for public disclosure. Subject to further legal review and statutory or regulatory clarification, which Pfizer intends to pursue, reimbursement of recruiting expenses for licensed physicians may constitute a reportable transfer of value under the federal transparency law commonly known as the Sunshine Act. Therefore, if you are a licensed physician who incurs recruiting expenses as a result of interviewing with Pfizer that we pay or reimburse, your name, address and the amount of payments made currently will be reported to the government. If you have questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact your Talent Acquisition representative.
EEO & Employment Eligibility
Pfizer is committed to equal opportunity in the terms and conditions of employment for all employees and job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or gender expression, national origin, disability or veteran status. Pfizer also complies with all applicable national, state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act and IRCA. Pfizer is an E-Verify employer. This position requires permanent work authorization in the United States.
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