Job Description

Based in Prague, join a global healthcare biopharma company and be part of a 130‑year legacy of success backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and an inspiring mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare.

Be part of an organisation driven by digital technology and data‑backed approaches that support a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines, and animal health products.

Help drive our AI strategy and implementation. Join a team with a passion for using data, analytics, and modern AI techniques to build solutions that support critical decisions and help us tackle some of the world’s greatest health threats.

Our Technology Centers focus on creating a space where teams can come together to deliver business solutions that save and improve lives. An integral part of our company’s IT operating model, Tech Centers are globally distributed locations where each IT division has employees to enable our digital transformation journey and drive business outcomes. These locations, in addition to other sites, are essential to supporting our business and strategy.

A focused group of leaders in each Tech Center helps to ensure we can manage and improve each location: from investing in the growth, success, and well‑being of our people, to making sure colleagues from each IT division feel a sense of belonging, to managing critical emergencies. Together, we leverage the strength of our global team to collaborate, optimize connections, and share best practices across the Tech Centers.

Join our company as a Software Engineering Technical Lead – DevX AI as we innovate across the application lifecycle. You will be a hands‑on engineer and technical contributor responsible for designing, building, and operationalizing AI‑powered products and platforms using modern technologies such as Python, AWS/Azure/GCP, containerization (Docker, Kubernetes/EKS), event‑driven architectures, Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), vector databases, and LLM orchestration frameworks.

What will you do?

> In sum

• Drive the end‑to‑end implementation of AI solutions from discovery and prototyping through production deployment and lifecycle management

• Work closely with product owners, data scientists, architects, and business stakeholders to identify use cases, design scalable solutions, and deliver measurable value

• Help shape our AI engineering best practices, patterns, and reusable components that can be leveraged across teams and use cases

• Act as a flagship practitioner for AI‑augmented software development, demonstrating how developers can responsibly and effectively use AI tools (code assistants, documentation agents, test generators, etc.) across the full development lifecycle

> Design and build AI solutions

• Design, develop, and maintain AI‑enabled applications and services using Python and AWS (e.g., Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, API Gateway, Step Functions, DynamoDB, RDS; experience with SageMaker or Bedrock is a plus)

• Implement RAG‑based systems and other LLM integration patterns, including document ingestion, indexing, retrieval pipelines, grounding on internal data sources, and prompt orchestration

• Work with vector databases (e.g., OpenSearch, pgvector, or similar) and embedding models to build semantic search and knowledge retrieval capabilities

• Leverage LLM orchestration / tooling frameworks (such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or equivalent) to build robust AI workflows and agents

• Build reusable microservices, APIs, and SDKs that expose AI capabilities to other products and teams

> Own the AI solution lifecycle

• Drive solutions from proof‑of‑concept to production‑grade implementations, including performance, reliability, observability, and cost optimization

• Implement robust CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitHub Actions), automated testing, and infrastructure‑as‑code (e.g., Terraform, AWS) for AI solutions

• Use containerization (Docker) and orchestration (Kubernetes / AWS EKS) to ensure scalable and portable deployments

• Monitor and continuously improve AI features in production (quality, latency, stability, usage) using logging, tracing, and metrics

> Champion AI in the developer workflow

• Serve as a role model for AI‑assisted development, using AI tools for tasks such as code generation, refactoring, test creation, documentation, and troubleshooting—while maintaining strong engineering discipline

• Help define standards and guidelines for responsible use of AI tools by developers (e.g., code review practices, IP considerations, data sensitivity)

• Coach other engineers on how to integrate AI into their daily workflows to increase productivity and quality without compromising security or compliance

• Experiment with and evaluate new AI capabilities (e.g., code copilots, test bots, documentation assistants, monitoring agents) and provide recommendations for wider adoption across the organization

What should you have?

> Education & experience

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related technology field

• Relevant software engineering experience, including building and operating production systems

• Hands‑on experience delivering AI/ML or LLM‑powered solutions in a production environment is strongly preferred

> Technical skills

• Strong proficiency in Python for backend development and scripting.

• Practical experience with AWS services for building cloud‑native applications (e.g., Lambda, ECS/EKS, S3, API Gateway, IAM, CloudWatch, Step Functions, Bedrock)

• Experience implementing RAG architectures and integrating LLMs (open‑source or commercial) into applications

• Hands‑on experience with vector databases / embeddings and document processing pipelines.Familiarity with LLM orchestration frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, or similar)

• Experience with RESTful APIs, event‑driven architectures (SNS/SQS, Kafka/Kinesis or similar), and microservices

• Experience with containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes, AWS EKS)

• Strong grounding in software engineering fundamentals: design patterns, code quality, testing, observability, performance, and security

• Hands‑on experience with Git‑based source control, CI/CD pipelines, and modern DevOps practices

• Practical exposure to AI‑assisted development tools (e.g., code copilots, AI test generators, documentation assistants) and a perspective on how to use them effectively in a team setting

> Nice to have

• Exposure to MLOps practices and tools (model packaging, deployment, monitoring, model registry)

• Experience with prompt engineering, LLM orchestration frameworks, or AI agents

• Experience building tools that support the software development lifecycle (e.g., AI‑assisted coding, testing, documentation, or operations)

> Soft skills

• Strong problem‑solving mindset with the ability to translate complex business problems into practical AI solutions

• Comfort working in a global, cross‑functional environment with distributed teams

• Good communication skills, able to explain technical concepts to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders

• Curiosity and a continuous learning mindset, especially around emerging AI technologies and practices

What we offer?

• Exciting work in a great team, global projects, international environment

• Opportunity to learn and grow professionally within the company globally

• Hybrid working model, flexible role pattern

• Pension and health insurance contributions

• Internal reward system plus referral program

• 5 weeks annual leave, 5 sick days, 15 days of certified sick leave paid above statutory requirements annually, 40 paid hours annually for volunteering activities, 12 weeks of parental contribution

• Cafeteria for tax free benefits according to your choice (meal vouchers, Lítačka, sport, culture, health, travel, etc.), Multisport Card

• Vodafone, Raiffeisen Bank, Foodora, and other discount programs

• Up-to-date laptop and iPhone

• Parking in the garage for drivers or showers for bikers

• Competitive salary, incentive pay, and many more

Ready to take up the challenge? Apply now!
Know anybody who might be interested? Refer this job!

#joinAI

The date shown below is the earliest possible closing date for this posting. However, we sometimes extend the job posting period as needed, so please feel free to apply anytime you see the "Apply" button available. You may also reach out to the recruiter directly via https://www.linkedin.com/in/badumtss/

Required Skills:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), CI/CD, Docker (Software), Git, Kubernetes, Large Language Models (LLMs), Python (Programming Language), Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Software Engineering, Vector Databases

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

Yes

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

N/A

Job Posting End Date:

03/16/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.