Senior Backend Engineer (Python / FastAPI)

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

Who We Are

At Roche Diagnostics Solutions (RDS), our mission is clear: to diagnose earlier, develop faster, and personalize treatment because every patient is unique. Within Computational Science & Informatics (CSI), we are the bridge between our origin and our future, shaping the next era of human health through precise, data-driven diagnostics and precision medicine. 

We excel in delivering rigorous, clinically actionable data analysis across our diagnostics portfolio, believing that advancing computational methods and informatics solutions is essential to harnessing dynamic human health data. By listening closely to patients and physicians, and leveraging digitization and cutting-edge technologies, we work collaboratively to turn insights into impact. 

This shared spirit creates an environment where ideas grow, new approaches are trialed, and competitive products reach patients faster—ultimately realizing the DIA 10-year vision and our One Roche ambitions so that everyone can access personalized healthcare solutions. 

The Opportunity

We are looking for an experienced Backend Python Engineer to build robust, scalable APIs and services that power our digital products in the life sciences sector. Working closely with our Frontend/UX team and Data Scientists, you will design the backend infrastructure required to process, manage, and serve complex bioinformatics and machine learning data.

In this highly collaborative role, you will tackle challenges ranging from optimizing database queries for massive datasets to architecting cloud-native solutions on AWS. We value engineers who are comfortable exploring complex data structures, establishing clean API boundaries, and ensuring high reliability as we scale our platforms to support critical scientific innovation.

Key Responsibilities:

• Design, build, and maintain high-performance, asynchronous backend services and robust RESTful APIs.

• Architect, deploy, and manage scalable and secure cloud infrastructure, utilizing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles.

• Design efficient database schemas, manage complex data relationships, execute seamless migrations, and ensure performant query optimization for massive datasets.

• Build and maintain data pipelines to ingest, normalize, and process large volumes of structured and unstructured scientific and bioinformatics data.

• Champion engineering excellence by writing clean, testable code, implementing comprehensive automated testing, and maintaining reliable CI/CD pipelines.

• Partner directly with the UX/Frontend team to establish seamless API integrations, and collaborate with Data Scientists to bring machine learning models into production workflows.

Who You Are

You are a proactive, collaborative software engineer who thrives on solving complex backend challenges. You possess a strong analytical mindset, are passionate about clean API boundaries, and excel at transforming data infrastructure to drive meaningful progress.

Qualifications & Skills

The Must-Haves:

• 5+ years of software engineering experience, with Python as your primary language.

• Strong software engineering fundamentals, including robust API design and experience building and scaling RESTful systems.

• Solid understanding of relational databases, data modeling, schema migrations, and query optimization.

• Proven experience building, deploying, and managing scalable infrastructure in cloud environments, ideally utilizing Infrastructure as Code (IaC).

• A strong focus on code quality, automated testing, and maintainability within CI/CD pipelines.

• Demonstrated ability to make progress in ambiguous environments, taking ownership of problems end-to-end—from understanding user needs to shipping production-ready solutions.

• Tech Stack Alignment: Hands-on experience with, or a strong foundation to quickly adapt to, our core stack: FastAPI, PostgreSQL, SQLAlchemy, Alembic, AWS (S3, Aurora, Fargate, Lambda, CDK), pytest, and NumPy.

The Nice-to-Haves:

• Domain knowledge or a strong interest in the life sciences sector, specifically Sequencing, PCR, Bioinformatics, or digital healthcare.

• Direct experience working with AWS HealthOmics or building data pipelines for genomic/biological data.

• Background in data-heavy or AI-integrated product architectures, including an interest in how AI/ML systems behave in production.

• Previous experience working within large, globally distributed enterprise environments (e.g., Pharma, MedTech).

At Roche, we embrace emerging innovations, like cloud-native infrastructure and AI, to enhance the patient journey. If you are ready to make a meaningful impact on patients and healthcare systems worldwide through cutting-edge technology, this is the place for you. Let’s create a healthier, brighter future for all.
 

* This is an on-site position and no relocation assistance is provided.

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.