Director – Security Architecture & Solutions Engineering - Shared engineering build function

GSK remains committed to achieving bold commercial ambitions for the future. By 2031, we aim to deliver £40 billion in annual sales, leveraging our existing strong performance momentum to significantly increase our positive impact on the health of billions of patients globally. Our Ahead Together strategy is centred on early intervention to prevent and alter the course of disease, thereby protecting people and supporting healthcare systems.

Our diverse portfolio consists of vaccines, specialty medicines, and general medicines.

Through continuous innovation and a dedicated focus on scientific and technical excellence, we strive to develop and launch new, groundbreaking treatments that address critical health challenges.

Domain focus: Shared engineering build function for all non-AI domains, organised in four squads matching the Product Management domains.

Job Purpose:

Own Security Solution Engineering: an eight-role team — seven engineers across four squads plus you — that builds, tests and packages the solutions every architecture domain specifies, before they transfer to a managed service vendor to operate. The squads map to the Product Management domains, and vulnerability, configuration and OT work is absorbed by the squad whose tooling it touches. You are judged on build quality, test evidence and whether the vendor can run what you hand over.

About the team:

Security Architecture and Solution Engineering sets the target-state security architecture for GSK and builds the solutions that realise it. The function brings IT and OT architecture under single ownership for the first time, spanning Network and Zero Trust, Application Security, Platform Security, MDR and Detection Engineering, VM and Configuration Management, Data Security, and OT Security across a global manufacturing, laboratory and research estate. Architecture sets the standards and reference designs, Solution Engineering builds, tests and packages them, and a managed service vendor operates them. Architecture accountability never transfers: Cyber Architecture and Solutions designs and builds, the vendor runs. Twenty roles, with standards applying in more than 100 countries.

What makes this role different. You own build, not design — every specification comes from a domain architect and you send it back if it cannot be tested rather than building to interpretation. Seven engineers across four squads cover network, data, platform and application security, MDR, vulnerability and configuration, and OT simultaneously, so prioritisation between domain Directors is a weekly negotiation and you will disappoint someone most weeks. Everything you build is operated by someone who was not in the room when it was built, which makes handover evidence a first-class deliverable rather than paperwork.

Key responsibilities:

This role will provide you the opportunity to lead key activities to progress your career. These responsibilities include some of the following:

• Own build, test and packaging across all security domains, leading seven engineers across four squads.

• Own the quality of vendor handover packages: a managed service must be able to operate what you built without Cyber Architecture and Solutions present.

• Build to the specifications the architecture domains set, escalating design problems rather than reinterpreting them.

• Own acceptance against the architecture specification and the operational readiness criteria, and refuse handover where test evidence does not cover the failure modes the design depends on.

• Own engineering standards, reusable build components and the solution testing playbook library.

• Arbitrate when two domain Directors both want the same squad in the same sprint, and hold the line on test coverage when a programme date is at risk.

• Lead and develop seven engineers, including three squad leads, an engineering excellence lead and the analyst and support roles.

• Own the configuration record standard the whole function builds to, sufficient to answer a GxP audit on who changed which control and under what change.

• Send back specifications that cannot be tested — no stated success criteria, no failure mode, no rollback — rather than building to interpretation.

• Run vendor shadowing and reverse-shadowing through transition, and close the gaps their first 30 days expose back into the handover pack standard.

• Lead your team in using approved AI tools to improve productivity and ways of working, role-modelling responsible use and follow GSK's Responsible AI, privacy and security requirements.

• Own hiring, performance management and succession across the four squads, and build the engineering bench the function will need as the vendor model matures.

Basic Qualifications:

• 20+ years in security engineering, including leading technical teams across geographies — domain focus: shared engineering build function for all non-AI domains, organised in four squads matching the Product Management domains

• Leading a security engineering team turning architecture into built, tested capability — four squads matching the Product Management domains one for one, each working in parallel with its domain product owner on use cases, roadmap and build priorities

• Standard builds through automated pipelines — build documentation, test evidence, configuration baselines and operational playbooks — plus a cross-domain security automation programme

• Vendor handover packs and operational-readiness sign-off before managed service takeover, and proof-of-value builds informing architecture and investment decisions

• Engineering AI-enabled security solutions and using GenAI and agentic automation to accelerate builds, testing and documentationEngineering AI-enabled security solutions, including the build, test and documentation standards that agentic automation is held to

Preferred Qualifications:

• Infrastructure as code, CI/CD and configuration management tooling (Terraform, Ansible, GitHub Actions)

• Security certification such as CISSP, or vendor certifications across SIEM, EDR or network security platforms

• Regulated industry experience, including GxP

• Running release management for security tooling where a failed EDR or proxy change has blast radius across more than 100 countries.

• Standing up a shared security engineering function from scratch, including the first build standards and the first vendor handover pack.
• Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent professional experience.
• Typical tools and technologies: Build and test automation, infrastructure as code using Terraform and Ansible, CI/CD pipelines, containerisation and Kubernetes, security tooling integration and API automation, Python and PowerShell, build documentation and test evidence to vendor-handover standard, ServiceNow.
  

#AGTech

Skills

AI for Cybersecurity, Application Security, Cloud Security, Computer Programming, Data Classification, Data Loss Prevention (DLP), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Operations and Management, Data Security, Enterprise Strategies, Identity Access Management (IAM), Information Systems, Infrastructure Security, Key Management, ML Security, Operating Systems Security, Scripting, Security Engineering, Security Technologies, Security Testing, Vulnerability Management

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive. We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

Inclusion at GSK:

As an employer committed to Inclusion, we encourage you to reach out if you need any adjustments during the recruitment process.

Please contact our Recruitment Team at [email protected] to discuss your needs.

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