Senior Backend Software Engineer (Seed / Founding Engineer)

Job Description

Senior Backend Software Engineer (Seed / Founding Engineer)

The Opportunity

• Based in Hyderabad, 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.
• Drive innovation and execution excellence. Join a team that is passionate about using data, analytics, and insights to drive decision-making and create custom software, allowing us to tackle some of the world's greatest health threats.

Our Technology Centres 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 Centres 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 the other sites, are essential to supporting our business and strategy.

A focused group of leaders in each Tech Center helps 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 must leverage the strength of our team to collaborate globally to optimize connections and share best practices across the Tech Centres.

Role Overview

As a Backend, you will design, build, and operate the server-side systems that power our products—APIs, services, data layers, integrations, and operational tooling.

You will work in a matrix organizational structure, partnering closely with Product and cross-functional peers to deliver outcomes end-to-end.

What will you do

Build & Run Production Backend Systems

Design, implement, and maintain scalable backend services and APIs (REST and service-to-service integration).

Own data modeling and persistence layers (relational and/or NoSQL), including performance optimization, indexing, and query tuning.

Implement security and data protection patterns (authentication/authorization, validation, secure endpoint design).

Drive operational excellence: observability, reliability improvements, incident response and pragmatic hardening of services over time.

Engineer for Quality (Not Just Delivery)

Write clean, maintainable code with strong automated tests (unit + integration) and enforce review discipline.

Follow “shift-left” engineering guardrails, including local validation expectations, a secure development posture, and secret protection.

GenAI / AI-Assisted Development (Expected, Governed, and Safe) We expect you to use AI-assisted development as part of day-to-day engineering—with strong human ownership and governance:

Use the enterprise-standard coding assistant GitHub Copilot for development tasks (coding, refactoring, test generation, PR support), with mandatory human review of AI-generated code before production deployment.

Use only permitted AI-assisted tools and follow internal boundaries (enterprise standard vs. exception tools).

Apply “human-in-the-loop” practice: responsibility for code integrity remains with the engineer, and AI output must be reviewed/validated.

Use GenAI to accelerate productivity across the lifecycle (development, PR reviews, test generation, system understanding), consistent with observed adoption patterns in Software engineering.

Follow Responsible AI principles—avoid feeding unsafe data into AI and use appropriate oversight when outputs inform decisions or external-facing artifacts

What should you have

Core Experience

• Major hands-on backend engineering experience delivering production systems: 3+ years
• Proven track record owning services end-to-end: design → build → deploy → operate.

Technical Skills (Must-Have)

• Strong proficiency in at least one backend stack (e.g., Java / Python / Node.js) and modern API/service design.
• Strong database fundamentals (schema design, SQL, performance optimization; NoSQL is a plus).
• Experience with CI/CD and modern engineering workflows (version control, automated testing, deployments).
• Secure development mindset: input validation, secrets hygiene, dependency/security awareness.

GenAI / AI-Assisted Development:

• Practical experience using AI-assisted coding tools (especially GitHub Copilot) to accelerate delivery while maintaining code quality.
• Discipline to apply guardrails: human review, local validation, and responsible AI use.

Nice to Have:

• Cloud-native experience (AWS/Azure/GCP), containers, observability tooling.
• Prior experience as an early hire/founding engineer in a new site or team.

Ways of Working:

• Operate within a product environment and collaborate cross-functionally in a matrix structure (functional + product alignment).
• Hyderabad Tech Center operates on a hybrid work model (3 days in-office; 2 days virtual).

Primary Skills (Mandatory)

• Java
• SQL, NoSQL
• Bit of AI

Secondary Skills (Good to have not mandatory)

• CI/CD
• AWS
• Pharma / Healthcare / Life science industry

Who we are:

We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

What we look for:

Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.

#HYDIT2025

Required Skills:

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Cross-Functional Collaboration, GitHub, GitHub Copilot, Java (Programming Language), Node.js, Operational Excellence, Organizational Structures, Production Management, Relational Database, Responsible AI

Preferred Skills:

Database Design, Feasibility Analysis, High Performance Computing (HPC), Software Development, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Solution Architecture, System Integration, Testing

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:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

No Travel Required

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Not Applicable

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

Yes

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

07/8/2026

*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.