System Engineer

Domain:Clinical Research | Healthcare Technology

About the Role

We are an advanced neuropsychiatric and neurorehabilitation centre with an active clinical research programme. We are building and scaling a proprietary patient data management platform that supports both our clinical operations and research workflows. The platform handles structured patient records, multi-format document ingestion, and clinical outcome tracking. You will own the technical architecture of the platform and contribute to its long-term growth.

Responsibilities

• Refactor a large Python codebase into a well-structured, maintainable multi-module package
• Migrate production data from SQLite to PostgreSQL, including schema redesign, data validation, and automated backups
• Deploy and maintain the application on a cloud platform, including managed database hosting, file storage, and secure remote access for multiple sites
• Package the application using Docker and docker-compose for consistent, reproducible deployment
• Implement role-based access control for clinical staff, researchers, and administrators
• Build pipelines for ingesting and indexing reports from PDFs and external sources
• Develop or integrate a web-based reporting interface accessible by authorised users
• Expose a clean API layer for external tools such as statistical software and ML pipelines to query the platform
• Support scaling to multiple clinical sites over time
• Implement audit logging and data governance practices appropriate for clinical research data

Skills & Qualifications

Required

• Proficiency in Python (backend development, OOP, modular design)
• Hands-on experience with PostgreSQL schema design, migrations, and performance tuning
• Practical knowledge of Docker and containerised deployment
• Experience deploying applications on a cloud platform AWS, GCP, or Azure (any one is sufficient)
• Experience with Git and collaborative version control
• Comfortable handling sensitive or regulated data

Preferred

• Experience with managed cloud database services (AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, or equivalent)
• Familiarity with cloud storage for document and file management (S3, GCS, or equivalent)
• Experience with SQLAlchemy or Alembic for database versioning
• Knowledge of FastAPI or Flask for API development
• Exposure to PDF parsing, OCR, or document processing pipelines
• Prior work in clinical, healthcare, or research data environments
• Data privacy awareness anonymisation, access control, audit logging

Good to Have

• Basic frontend exposure (Streamlit, Dash, or similar)
• Familiarity with cloud networking basics VPCs, security groups, access policies
• Interest in or familiarity with clinical research workflows

Who We Are Looking For

A pragmatic, self-directed engineer who can take ownership of a functioning system, improve it without breaking it, and build with future scale in mind. You should be comfortable working closely with a clinical researcher and translating real-world workflow needs into reliable technical solutions.

• 25 years of backend or full-stack development experience
• At least one prior database migration project
• Prior cloud deployment experience is essential
• Clinical or research domain exposure is a strong advantage

Engagement

The role begins as a contract engagement with scope to transition into a longer-term arrangement as the platform grows. Compensation is commensurate with experience and will be discussed during the interview process.