Senior Principal - SN Automation Engineering Architect

Business Introduction
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 SERVICENOW Automation Engineering Architect is accountable for designing and governing automation-centric technical solutions across the ServiceNow Platform & Enterprise Tools domain plus the ability to build automation that does not reside within the ServiceNow domain, ensuring they are scalable, secure, and aligned to enterprise architecture standards and long-term technology direction.
The role translates business and product requirements into well-engineered automation solutions, leveraging ServiceNow capabilities (e.g. workflow, orchestration, integration, low-code/no-code, and AI-enabled automation) to improve efficiency, reliability, and user experience.
Operating at a senior technical leadership level, the Automation Engineering Architect provides architectural assurance, defines reusable automation patterns, and guides engineering teams to deliver consistent, supportable, and sustainable automation solutions. The role partners closely with Product Teams, Enterprise Architecture, platform engineers, and business stakeholders to govern design decisions, manage trade-offs, and reduce automation-related technical debt while maximising platform value.

Key Responsibilities

- Lead the design of scalable, secure, and resilient automation solutions, including AI, across the ServiceNow Platform & Enterprise Tools plus non-ServiceNow automation ecosystems, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture principles and platform strategy.  In addition, this role is accountable for service catalogue conversational forms and MSP service catalogue factory.

- Translate business and product requirements into automation-led solution designs, leveraging ServiceNow & non-ServiceNow workflows, integrations, orchestration, and platform-native capabilities.

- Define and govern automation architecture patterns, standards, and guardrails to ensure consistency, reuse, and long-term maintainability across delivery teams.

- Provide architectural assurance across complex and integrated automation solutions by operating solution assurance checkpoints (e.g. design reviews, security threat modelling, performance and non-functional validation).

- Prepare and present high-risk or complex automation designs to Architecture Review Boards, recording Architectural Decision Records (ADRs) and identifying where exemptions or trade-offs require approval.

- Support compliance with security, data protection, and operational controls, ensuring automation designs meet enterprise and regulatory requirements.

- Publish and maintain ServiceNow Platform & Enterprise Tools–specific reference architectures, reusable automation patterns, and integration/interface contracts, tracking adoption and reuse across teams.

- Evaluate and recommend automation technologies, integration approaches, and observability standards (e.g. logging, monitoring, telemetry) to ensure operability, supportability, and lifecycle sustainability.

- Develop and maintain architecture artefacts (e.g. logical and physical models, automation flows, integration diagrams, sequencing diagrams), ensuring consistent versioning and reuse.

- Analyse existing automation solutions and platform configurations to identify technical debt, design gaps, or integration challenges, feeding remediation and modernisation opportunities into product and platform roadmaps.

- Support the continuous improvement of automation standards, patterns, observability expectations, and architectural guardrails in collaboration with Enterprise Architecture and platform leadership.

- Guide engineering and product teams throughout the delivery lifecycle, resolving automation and design queries and ensuring solution integrity during build, deployment, and operational readiness.

- Coach and mentor engineers and junior architects, promoting high-quality automation engineering practices, reuse behaviours, and adherence to architectural standards across delivery teams.

Professional Qualifications

- Bachelor's or Master's degree in a relevant field (e.g., Computer Science, Information Technology, or Engineering), or equivalent experience.

- Industry certifications highly desirable (e.g. TOGAF, Zachman, cloud architecture certifications)
Area of Specialisation

- Solution Architecture, systems integration, cloud-based design, application architecture, and technology evaluation.

- Knowledge of architectural patterns, microservices, APIs, integration architectures, and modern engineering practices.

Experience Required

- Overall 15 Years and typically 5–8+ years in solution architecture or technical design roles within complex enterprise environments.

- Experience with automation and orchestration, including AI platforms and capabilities in marketplace.

- Proven experience designing integrated, multi-system solutions that deliver clear business value.

- Experience providing technical assurance across solution delivery, ensuring alignment with architectural guardrails, security standards, and non-functional requirements.

- Demonstrated ability to troubleshoot architectural challenges and guide engineering teams through complex design decisions.

- Experience engaging with stakeholders at senior levels, explaining complex concepts in a clear and accessible manner.

- Knowledge of modern technology stacks, integration methods, cloud architectures, and relevant vendor ecosystems.

- Experience contributing to or defining architectural patterns, standards, or guardrails within a structured governance environment.

- Exposure to presenting proposals or high-risk designs to architecture review boards or similar oversight bodies.
Desirable Requirements:

- ServiceNow and enterprise AI architecture fluency – Strong understanding of ServiceNow AI/ML capabilities (predictive, virtual agent, GenAI, automation) and broader AI platforms to design “build and buy” solutions that integrate cleanly with the platform.

- Automation engineering leadership across a mature platform – Ability to lead design and delivery of cross-module automation patterns, orchestrations, and AI-assisted workflows without needing deep process expertise in every domain.

- Technical integration and solution design with MSP partners – Skilled at translating process-owner requirements into clear technical designs, directing MSP engineering teams, and ensuring solutions are robust, secure, and supportable.

- Collaboration with product managers and automation analysts – Proven experience working with product managers and analysts to refine use cases, prioritise automation opportunities, and align AI solutions to roadmap and platform standards.

- Governance, ethics, and performance of AI-driven automation – Ensures AI solutions meet security, compliance, and ethical guidelines, while monitoring performance, accuracy, and user impact to drive continuous improvement and safe scaling.

Skills/Background

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- Strong analytical and conceptual modelling skills, able to translate business requirements into clear architectural designs.

- Excellent communication and stakeholder management abilities.

- Ability to influence decisions across technical and non-technical teams.

- Strong understanding of risk management, compliance considerations, and non-functional requirements.

- Familiarity with Agile, DevOps, and modern delivery practices.

- Ability to coach, mentor, and develop architectural capability across teams.

#AGTech

Skills
Architectural Design, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation, Cloud Computing, Container Orchestration, Data Center Management, DevOps, Disaster Recovery (DR), Identity Access Management (IAM), Information Technology (IT) Risk Management, Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS), Leadership, Network Design, Serverless Platforms, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Stakeholder Management, Storage Area Network (SAN), Strategizing, System Monitors, Technical Architecture, Technical Architecture Design, Virtualization, Zero Trust Architecture

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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