Roche Posted August 12, 2026

Data Transfer Engineer

Madrid, Spain FULL_TIME
Information Technology

Roche is the source of truth for this posting and owns the application process. We surface normalized context and market comparison you won't find on the original listing.

About this opportunity

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections,  where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters.

The Position

As a Data Transfer Engineer within the Accelerated Compute Engineering (ACE) team, you will be responsible for owning the high-speed data transfer services that feed our advanced compute environments. With the introduction of our industry-leading AI Factory, the ability to move massive, petabyte-scale datasets rapidly and securely is more critical than ever.  You will own the deployment, configuration, and ongoing optimization of specialized Data Transfer Appliances that bridge our traditional HPC clusters with our next-generation AI infrastructure. By ensuring seamless, high-bandwidth data mobility and aggressively eliminating network and I/O bottlenecks, you will play a foundational role in ensuring that our researchers can train complex AI models and execute large-scale computational science workloads without friction.

Description of the area

Hosting and Infrastructure (HI) provides mission-critical on-premise infrastructure, cloud hosting, connectivity, and technology products that enable all functions at every Roche site to develop, innovate, connect, and deliver compliant digital products across the Roche Enterprise.

The Value Streams - Accelerated Compute Engineering (ACE) Team is focused on driving both customer success and platform success by acting as a center of excellence and delivery for the High Performance Compute and AI Infrastructure supporting AI and HPC use cases across Roche. This team facilitates seamless onboarding and adoption for business vertical customers needing accelerated compute, helping those infrastructure consumers with needs optimized for high availability, seamless data transfer, flexibility, speed, and the rapidly changing needs of AI, helping achieve rapid time-to-value.

Job Responsibilities

Pipeline Architecture & Management

Own the end-to-end deployment and lifecycle management of specialized Data Transfer Appliances.

Identify and resolve systemic network and I/O bottlenecks to maximize throughput between storage tiers and compute nodes.

Technical Operations & Optimization

Manage integration with various storage architectures, including Object Storage, NAS (NFS), and parallel file systems such as GPFS.

Implement automation for on-site deployment and configuration of our factory-built and tuned Data Transfer appliances using Ansible, Kickstart, or Red Hat Satellite to ensure scalable and reproducible environments.

Performance & Monitoring

Analyze system logs, kernel messages, and network statistics to proactively monitor the health and performance of the data transfer fabric.

Define and track success metrics for data mobility, providing insights to leadership on infrastructure utilization and performance trends.

User Enablement & Support Experience .

Explore innovative approaches to drive more frictionless consumption of our Data Transfer appliances, e.g, Agentic AI and MCP

Develop user-facing documentation, scripts, and tools that simplify complex data movement tasks for the broader scientific community.

Provide high-level technical support, isolating complex issues across storage, network, and application layers in a collaborative, cross-functional manner.

Who You Are

Basic Qualifications:

Bachelor’s or an advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a similar technical discipline.

Proven experience in managing large-scale Linux environments (RHEL/rebuilds) with deep proficiency in CLI tools (grep, awk, sed, etc.).

Demonstrated experience in high-performance computing (HPC) or AI infrastructure environments.

Technical & Business Skills:

Scripting & Automation: Strong proficiency in Bash and Python scripting, along with hands-on experience using Ansible for infrastructure as code.

Storage & Networking: Deep understanding of parallel file systems (Lustre, GPFS) and high-speed networking (InfiniBand, TCP/IP tuning).

Security: Solid grasp of IAM configurations (LDAP, AD, OIDC), JWT tokens, and certificate management.

Problem Solving: A diagnostic mindset with the ability to interpret complex logs (system, kernel, network) to isolate performance degradation.

Technical Communication: Excellent ability in technical English (reading and writing) to document complex architectures and guide users.

Leadership & Mindset:

Lean & Agile Mindset: You focus on automation and efficiency to scale support and operations.

Enterprise Mindset: Ability to break down silos and collaborate across organizational boundaries to ensure end-to-end data mobility.

Intellectual Curiosity: A passion for staying current with major IT market trends, specifically in AI hardware and high-speed data movement.

 

 

Who we are

A healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact.

Let’s build a healthier future, together.

Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Job details

Seniority
Not listed
Function
Information Technology
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Madrid, Spain
Employment type
FULL_TIME

How this role compares

Computed from every other active Information Technology role in our database, not just this employer's listings.

We currently track 1097 comparable Information Technology roles across 55 biopharma companies.

1097Comparable roles tracked
1035Currently active
55Companies hiring similar roles
29Countries represented

Salary context

143 of 1097 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function. This posting doesn't list a seniority level, so peers aren't narrowed by seniority either -- the range below may span more levels than usual.

This roleSubject Not listed on this posting
Lowest disclosed · Senior Data Security Engineer (Insider Risk Management – Engineering) · AbbVie $0/hr – $0/hr (≈ $0–$0/yr)
Highest disclosed · Senior Director, Targets and Mechanisms Solutions · Pfizer $230,900/yr – $384,800/yr
Peer group range $0 – $307,850 (median $165,900)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 1097 comparable roles

India507
United States241
Spain105
Poland72
Portugal32
China13

+ 23 more countries

Seniority mix

612 of 1097 peers have a known seniority level

Senior290
Manager135
Associate52
Principal50
Associate Director39
Director28
Senior Director13
Intern/Fellow/Postdoc4
Executive/VP1

Therapeutic area mix

1 of 1097 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden

Oncology1

Similar opportunities

The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.

40%similar
Roche Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain
Same function Same country
40%similar
Roche Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain Senior
Same function Same country
40%similar
Novartis Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain
Same function Same country
40%similar
Novartis Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain Associate Director
Same function Same country
40%similar
Novartis Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain Associate Director
Same function Same country
40%similar
Novartis Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain Associate Director
Same function Same country

How we calculate "similar"

No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.

Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.

40%
Lead Software Engineer (Rust)
Roche · Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain · Seniority not listed
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
Associate Director Business Analysis (GCO)
Novartis · Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
Snr. Specialist, Platform Services - Data, Digital & IT
Novartis · Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain · Seniority not listed
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
40%
Associate Director, Solution Design Expert (Advanced Therapies)
Novartis · Barcelona Gran Vía, Spain · Associate Director
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
Unmatched or unknown dimensions score exactly the same: 0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.