Process Automation Principal Engineer

At Elanco (NYSE: ELAN) – it all starts with animals!

As a global leader in animal health, we are dedicated to innovation and delivering products and services to prevent and treat disease in farm animals and pets. At Elanco, we are driven by our vision of Food and Companionship Enriching Life and our purpose – all to Go Beyond for Animals, Customers, Society and Our People.

At Elanco, we pride ourselves on fostering a diverse and inclusive work environment. We believe that diversity is the driving force behind innovation, creativity, and overall business success. Here, you’ll be part of a company that values and champions new ways of thinking, work with dynamic individuals, and acquire new skills and experiences that will propel your career to new heights.

Making animals’ lives better makes life better – join our team today!

Your Role:

As a Process Automation Principal Engineer, you will be the lead technical expert and a hands-on mentor within our engineering team. You will be responsible for tackling our most complex automation challenges, setting the standard for quality, and guiding other engineers in building sophisticated solutions. This role is for a seasoned, pragmatic leader who excels at both high-level design and expert-level implementation, acting as the crucial link between architectural vision and engineering execution.

This includes four strategic priorities:

• Pipeline Acceleration: Optimize the search and approval of high impact medicines with a focus on speed, cost and precision.
• Manufacturing Excellence: Improve the efficiency, quality and consistency of core manufacturing processes, specifically execution and equipment effectiveness.
• Sales Effectiveness: Simplify the process to find, trust and consume relevant customer insights that drive sales growth and improved engagement.
• Productivity: Expand operating margin through efficiency by systematically reducing our operating expenses across the company, improving profitability.

Your Responsibilities:

• Lead Complex Implementations: Personally design, develop, and deliver the most challenging and high-impact automation projects, setting a benchmark for technical excellence.
• Mentor and Guide Engineers: Act as a technical leader and mentor for other automation engineers, providing guidance through code reviews, pair programming, and sharing expert knowledge.
• Champion Best Practices: Drive the adoption and refinement of development standards, design patterns, and best practices within the team, ensuring consistency and quality in all solutions.
• · Act as a Final Escalation Point: Serve as the ultimate technical authority for troubleshooting and resolving the most difficult production issues and system-wide challenges.
• Technical Design and Review: Lead technical design sessions and peer reviews for complex automation workflows, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, and maintainable.
• Contribute to Strategy: Provide critical, hands-on feedback to the Process Automation Architect on tooling, platform capabilities, and potential new technologies to influence the long-term strategy.
• Optimize the Ecosystem: Proactively identify and lead initiatives to refactor, optimize, and improve the overall health and performance of the existing automation portfolio.

What You Need to Succeed (Minimum Qualifications):

• Educational Background: A Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Engineering, or a related field is preferred.
• Required Experience: 8+ years experience with a significant and demonstrable track record of developing, deploying, and maintaining complex automation solutions in a large-scale enterprise environment.
• Expert-Level Tooling Knowledge: Deep experience developing automation solutions, including bots, workflows and integrations, leveraging modern programmatic techniques (e.g., APIs, etc.)
• Advanced Scripting & Programming Skills: Proficiency in one or more scripting or programming languages, such as JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, PowerShell, or Bash.
• Cloud Platform Proficiency: Practical experience with Public Cloud, specifically Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and their Automation services (e.g., Azure Logic Apps).
• DevSecOps: knowledge of relevant DevSecOps concepts and tooling, including Continuous Integration/Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), Git SCM, Containerization (Docker, Kubernetes), Infrastructure-as-Code (HashiCorp Terraform).

What Will Give You the Competitive Edge (Preferred Qualifications):

• System-Level Thinking: Proven ability to design and implement solutions that involve complex integrations, multiple systems, and sophisticated logic, using APIs and other integration methods.
• Model Context Protocol: Thought leadership of emerging frameworks that facilitate integration between AI solutions and access external tools, data sources, and systems.
• Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Verifiable experience mentoring junior and senior engineers, leading technical projects, and acting as a go-to expert for a development team.
• Architectural Acumen: Strong ability to understand and translate high-level architectural diagrams and requirements into detailed technical designs and executable code.
• Advanced Troubleshooting: World-class diagnostic and debugging skills, with an ability to solve deep and complex issues that span multiple systems.
• Pragmatic Problem-Solving: A history of solving ambiguous, complex business problems with robust, practical, and efficient technical solutions.
• Industry Experience: A strong understanding of life science, covering the business model, regulatory/compliance requirements, risks and rewards. An ability to identify and execute against opportunities within machine learning that directly support life science outcomes.
• Communication Skills: Good verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively within a technical team.

Additional Information:

• Location: Global Headquarters- Indianapolis, IN (Hybrid environment)
• Travel: Minimal

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown underrecognized groups are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At Elanco we are dedicated to building a diverse and inclusive work environment. If you think you might be a good fit for a role but don't necessarily meet every requirement, we encourage you to apply. You may be the right candidate for this role or other roles!

Elanco Benefits and Perks:

We offer a comprehensive benefits package focusing on financial, physical, and mental well-being while encouraging our employees to pursue our purpose! Some highlights include:

• Multiple relocation packages
• Two weeklong shutdowns (mid-summer and year-end) in the US (in addition to PTO)
• 8-week parental leave
• 9 Employee Resource Groups
• Annual bonus offering
• Flexible work arrangements
• Up to 6% 401K matching

Elanco is an EEO/Affirmative Action Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status