Associate Engineer, Technology I
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North Chicago, IL
- Corporate
- Hybrid
- Full-time
About AbbVie
AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology, and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.
We are seeking a technically versatile and self-driven Associate Engineer, Technology I to join the Advanced Solutions Team within the DELOS (Data, Exploration & Linked Outcomes Solutions) Research Group, with a primary focus on leading the EXTRACT platform, an AI-powered data engineering suite. This role combines data science, software engineering, and clinical informatics to automate the full lifecycle of data standardization (aligned to FDA/SDTM standards) and OMOP Common Data Model transformation. The ideal candidate brings strong Python and SQL skills, hands-on experience with large language models and RAG architectures, and a passion for building intelligent systems that replace manual data processes with automated, auditable AI pipelines executed directly against enterprise Impala infrastructure. The standardized data produced by EXTRACT directly supports the DELOS PatientVerse initiative, providing the clean, research-ready data layer that downstream patient-level analytics and insights depend on.
Responsibilities:
- Lead and execute agile sprints with stakeholders from all business domains, gathering requirements and delivering actionable data solutions.
- Harmonize and integrate patient-level data (clinical trial, EHR/claims, etc.) across business lines.
- Partner closely with project owners to ensure data, tools, and AI solutions are scalable, fit-for-purpose, and impactful.
- Contribute to the organization’s long-term data/AI/tool strategies by sharing hands-on knowledge and workflow improvements.
- Drive engagement, adoption, and change management by actively collaborating with teams from early research.
- Design and build AI pipelines that ingest raw clinical trial data (Adverse Events, Lab Tests, Medical History, Procedures, Drug Names, Subject Exposure) and standardize it to FDA/SDTM regulatory formats using LLM-powered term resolution, phonetic matching, and symbolic rule engines.
- Analyze and validate clinical trial datasets across large study libraries to evaluate and confirm their transformation into CDISC SDTM data standards.
- Architect and maintain a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system that indexes OHDSI clinical documentation (THEMIS, CDM field specifications, dbt-synthea SQL patterns) into vector stores and injects relevant context into LLM inference for automated OMOP CDM field mapping.
- Build automated ETL SQL generation that reads source schemas via scan reports, produces Impala-compatible INSERT/SELECT statements, and populates OMOP CDM tables replacing months of manual mapping with a single pipeline command.
- Develop vocabulary resolution systems that map clinical codes (e.g., LOINC, MedDRA, ICD-10, RxNorm) to OMOP concept_ids using Athena vocabulary tables, embedding similarity, and LLM reasoning for ambiguous cases.
- Implement multi-layer data quality validation (DQD constraint checks, Achilles descriptive analysis, OmopCheckout sanity checks) translated from R/JDBC to Impala SQL, producing automated HTML quality reports after every ETL run.
- Build neuro-symbolic AI pipelines that route clinical term cleaning through four tiers — symbolic rules (YAML), phonetic algorithms, embedding similarity, and LLM inference — with full auditability and per-tier traceability on every decision.
- Design and develop full-stack applications (React frontend, Python-based API backend, Impala database layer) including a mapping review dashboard with confidence scores, RAG citations, and approve/reject workflows for stakeholder sign-off.
- Build and integrate interactive dashboards (Qlik Sense, Power BI) into applications to surface data-quality, mapping, and stakeholder insights.
- Build semantic classification models that automatically determine the meaning, data type category, clinical domain, sensitivity level, and OMOP mapping target for every column in any source database.
- Develop LLM-powered data profiling capabilities that analyze source schemas, profile tables and columns, visualize relationships, and generate natural-language documentation.
- Apply unsupervised machine learning (embedding-based clustering, such as K-Means) to standardize medical terminology, including indication terms.
- Design feedback loops where data quality validation failures and human corrections automatically generate new rules, surface vocabulary gaps, and expand training data — ensuring the system improves with every use.
- Lead and mentor cross-functional teams and multi-university student cohorts in building clinical data tools — for example, terminology and lab-name mapping tools delivered against defined timelines — translating complex technical requirements into achievable sprint deliverables.
- Partner across AbbVie divisions to scale EXTRACT through enablement sessions, cross-functional collaborations.
- Key Stakeholders: Medical Health Insights, Value and Evidence, Discovery Research, Health Economics and Outcomes, Market Access, Precision Medicine, Data Engineering & Observability (DEO), Mergers and Acquisitions
Required:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Mathematics, or related quantitative field required.
- Programming proficiency in Python and SQL required.
- Hands-on experience building applications with large language model APIs (Claude, GPT, or equivalent) including prompt engineering and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architectures.
- Familiarity with clinical data standards such as OMOP CDM, CDISC SDTM, LOINC, and MedDRA (RxNorm a plus), or demonstrated ability to learn clinical informatics domains rapidly.
- Experience developing data visualizations and dashboards (Power BI, Qlik Sense).
- Demonstrated ability to learn, understand, and master new technologies rapidly.
- Strong written and oral English communication skills with the ability to present technical work to non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to lead cross-functional teams and mentor junior developers or student cohorts.
- Analytical reasoning abilities, intellectual curiosity, and creativity in problem solving.
Preferred:
- Experience with distributed data systems (Apache Impala, Cloudera, Snowflake, or equivalent) preferred.
- Experience profiling, standardizing, or validating clinical or trial datasets against regulatory or common data models (e.g., SDTM, OMOP) preferred.
- Familiarity with OHDSI tools and vocabularies (Athena, WhiteRabbit, Achilles, DataQualityDashboard, Ariadne), or the ability to ramp up on them quickly, preferred.
- Experience with full-stack and web development (React, HTML/CSS, and API design; FastAPI or a similar backend framework a plus) preferred.
- Exposure to machine learning methods, including unsupervised techniques such as clustering (e.g., K-Means), preferred.
- Experience with embedding models and embedding-based similarity or semantic search (vector databases a plus) preferred.
Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law:
The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future.
We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.
This job is eligible to participate in our short-term incentive programs.
Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.
AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.
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- No
Pay Range: $
58656 - 103500 USD
Where We Work
Role is primarily site- or office-based but can occasionally be performed remotely. Employees who are site/office-based and can occasionally perform their role virtually work both in the office and remotely*, following the policies and regulations in place at their location. US Employees must be in the office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with flexibility to work remotely on Mondays and Fridays. Three days in the office is the minimum; some individuals or teams may require more in-office days due to meetings, business/project needs or their role.