Principal Engineer - IAM Directory Services

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.

Job Purpose: The Principal Engineer, IAM Directory Services will lead workstreams within IAM Directory Services and act as a subject matter expert for the capability. This is an individual contributor engineering role carrying build and design authority across enterprise directory services, Linux authentication, secure application development and automation.

About the team: IAM Directory Services owns the identity foundation the rest of GSK depends on: Active Directory, Entra ID, Linux authentication services and the directory and synchronisation layer beneath every authentication and authorisation decision GSK makes.

Key responsibilities:

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

• Lead assigned workstreams from definition through delivery.

• Act as subject matter expert for the capability and advise stakeholders across GSK.

• Mentor colleagues and review their technical or analytical work.

• Own the technical design and build of assigned components end to end.

• Work with business partners across IT and OT to advise on secure integration practices, embedding zero standing privileges as the guiding ethos through least-privilege access, just-in-time elevation and the removal of persistent, privileged access wherever practicable.

• Set engineering standards for the team and review code and configuration against them.

• Develop and maintain secure applications, services and automation using C#, .NET, PowerShell and APIs, applying software engineering, testing, source-control and deployment standards.

• Own the design, health and security of GSK's directory estate across Active Directory and Entra ID.

• Manage directory synchronisation, identity data flow and attribute consistency across the estate.

• Design, engineer and support Linux authentication and privileged access, including identity mapping, policy enforcement and troubleshooting.

• Harden the directory estate, including tiering, privileged group control and legacy protocol reduction.

• Own the governance of directory delegation rights, including detailed analysis of effective permissions, detection of excessive or unintended access, clear reporting, risk-based remediation and validation that changes have achieved the intended control outcome.

• Manage domain, forest and tenant architecture, including trusts and migration activity.

• Operate directory monitoring, backup and recovery, and prove recovery works.

• Support directory-related incident response and forensics.

• Maintain directory standards, schema governance and integration patterns.

Basic Qualifications:

• Degree in a relevant discipline, or related experience.

• Demonstrated experience in Active Directory and Entra ID engineering.

• Practical experience integrating Linux platforms with enterprise directory services through Centrify or an equivalent Linux authentication product.

• Working knowledge of directory synchronisation and identity data management.

• Application development and automation experience using C#, .NET, PowerShell and APIs.

• Experience with source code lifecycle management solutions such as Git.

• Practical experience with directory hardening and recovery. Experience with AD tiering, privileged access hardening and legacy protocol reduction.

• Detailed understanding of directory delegation models, access control entries, inheritance and effective permissions, with experience producing permissions reports and remediating inappropriate or excessive delegated rights.

• Strong practical experience in the relevant cyber security domain.

• Proven experience leading workstreams and delivering high-quality outcomes.

• Ability to act as a subject matter expert and advise stakeholders confidently.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Deep hands-on experience with Centrify or comparable products for Linux authentication, authorisation and privileged access at enterprise scale.

• Experience designing delegated administration models and using directory permissions analysis to identify, prioritise, remediate and evidence control of excessive rights.

• Scripting skill in PowerShell.

• Strong C#/.NET engineering capability and experience building maintainable automation, integrations, reporting solutions and operational tooling.

• Experience with directory migration or consolidation programmes.

• Relevant certification such as CISSP, SC-300, Microsoft identity and access certifications.

• Experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences or another highly regulated industry
• Typical tools and technologies include Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft Entra Connect, LDAP, PowerShell, and directory monitoring and recovery tools.

#AGTech

Skills

Account Lifecycle Management, Active Directory (AD), Active Directory Security, Authentication Server Software, Authentication Systems, Automation Technology, Certificate Management, Cloud Based Services, Computer Programming, Configuration Management (CM), Database Management, Directory Services, Identity Access Management (IAM), Identity Lifecycle Management, Information Technology (IT) Risk Management, Infrastructure Security, Microsoft Entra ID Security, Privileged Access Management (PAM), Security Controls, System Monitors, Technical Communication, Troubleshooting

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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