Manager Backend Software Engineer (Seed / Founding Engineer)
The Opportunity
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.
As a Senior Backend Seed Engineer, 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.
This role is deliberately broader than a standard “backend developer”: you will set the quality bar, define patterns, and help bootstrap a durable engineering culture in Hyderabad.
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 such as local validation expectations, secure development posture, and secret protection.
Seed / Founding Responsibilities (Site-Building)
Establish backend engineering standards, reusable patterns, and reference implementations for the Hyderabad team to scale on.
Mentor future hires and raise the bar through pairing, reviews, and pragmatic coaching.
Act as a bridge between Hyderabad and global teams—bringing clarity, predictability, and engineering rigor into distributed delivery.
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
Technical Skills (Must-Have)
GenAI / AI-Assisted Development:
Nice to Have:
Ways of Working:
Primary Skills (Mandatory)
Secondary Skills (Good to have not mandatory)
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, Data Engineering, Data Visualization, Design Applications, GitHub, GitHub Copilot, Mentoring New Hires, Mentorship, Node.js, Operational Excellence, Organizational Structures, Production Management, Responsible AI, Software Configurations, Software Development, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Solution Architecture, System Designs, System Integration, Testing
Preferred Skills:
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:
No
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.
At MSD, known as Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA in the United States and Canada, we are unified around our purpose: We use the power of leading-edge science to save and improve lives around the world. For more than 130 years, we have brought hope to humanity through the development of important medicines and vaccines. We aspire to be the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company in the world – and today, we are at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions that advance the prevention and treatment of diseases in people and animals. We foster a diverse and inclusive global workforce and operate responsibly every day to enable a safe, sustainable and healthy future for all people and communities. For more information, visit www.msd.com and connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
