Lilly Posted July 1, 2026

Sr Principal Engineer - MES Systems

Richmond, Virginia, United States of America FULL_TIME
Information Technology Principal

Lilly 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 Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Sr Principal Engineer – MES Systems

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our 35,000 employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

This is an opportunity you don’t want to miss!

Lilly is entering an exciting period of growth and we are committed to delivering innovative medicines to patients around the world. Lilly is investing over $50 Billion to create new Manufacturing Capacity throughout the world. This is an exciting once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to help build and start up new sites.

What You’ll Be Doing

The Sr Principal Engineer - MES System will part of one of our new state of the art API facility MES team tasked with developing standard approaches and components that will used to build MES recipes and integration throughout Lilly’s network of new Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) sites.  The role will assist local teams in the Design, Development, Delivery and CSV of the MES solutions for the new facilities. This role will report to the MQ IT Leader for new facilities.

What You Should Bring (preferred skills)

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Regulatory compliance knowledge and experience (cGMP)

Effective people and team leadership skills

Ability to manage and contribute to multiple concurrent activities and adapt to changes in priorities.

Ability to cross functionally collaborate.

Excellent written and oral communication skills.

Demonstrate creativity, analytical thinking, and the ability to troubleshoot and solve problems.

Knowledge of cloud solutions and architecture

History of promoting safety and maintaining a safe work environment

Establish a strong site culture based in Lilly values, expectations, and operational excellence standards.

Demonstrated adhere adherence to compliance for internal and external quality guidance.

Demonstrated and promote Operational Excellence

Effectively encourage knowledge sharing and education

Evaluate and translate functional requirements into technical solutions.

Ability to problem solving and work through manufacturing situations. Have experience serving as an escalation contact with vendor(s)

Proven technical ability to develop and integrate MES solutions

What Your Primary Responsibilities Will Be:

Develop and integrate MES common and site-specific components.

Benchmark on innovative solutions (external and internal to Lilly)

Dynamically adapt road map to site evolution/strategic directions, and new trends/issues.

Establish a strong site culture based in Lilly values, expectations, and operational excellence standards.

Support MES solutions start up activities.

Work with site resources towards replication & standardization to drive value and implement the appropriate technical solutions.

Evaluate emerging technologies and implications to existing Lilly footprint.

Maintain open communication with MES vendor(s) to address needs in standard solution or via functional packs.

Evaluate and translate functional requirements into technical solutions.

Ensure project and/or validation documentation is maintained during lifecycle & release management.

Develops \ assists in the creation and maintenance of the MES interfaces with other Lilly systems.

Your Basic Qualifications (with no sponsorship)

Bachelor’s Degree in IT, Engineering, or related technical field,

10+ years of strong experience with MES system implementations and Data Integration preferably Syncade/Delta V MES

Professional experience working in a GXP, regulated environment

Other Information:

Role is Monday through Friday and based on-site.  Must be flexible in providing support to accommodate other inputs (production schedules, shutdowns, etc.).  Occasional extended hour and / or off-hour work may be required.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form ( https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation ) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly is proud to be an EEO Employer and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender identity, sex, gender expression, sexual orientation, genetic information, ancestry, national origin, protected veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Our employee resource groups (ERGs) offer strong support networks for their members and are open to all employees. Our current groups include: Africa, Middle East, Central Asia Network, Black Employees at Lilly, Chinese Culture Network, Japanese International Leadership Network (JILN), Lilly India Network, Organization of Latinx at Lilly (OLA), PRIDE (LGBTQ+ Allies), Veterans Leadership Network (VLN), Women’s Initiative for Leading at Lilly (WILL), enAble (for people with disabilities). Learn more about all of our groups.

Actual compensation will depend on a candidate’s education, experience, skills, and geographic location.  The anticipated wage for this position is

$126,000 - $184,800

Full-time equivalent employees also will be eligible for a company bonus (depending, in part, on company and individual performance). In addition, Lilly offers a comprehensive benefit program to eligible employees, including eligibility to participate in a company-sponsored 401(k); pension; vacation benefits; eligibility for medical, dental, vision and prescription drug benefits; flexible benefits (e.g., healthcare and/or dependent day care flexible spending accounts); life insurance and death benefits; certain time off and leave of absence benefits; and well-being benefits (e.g., employee assistance program, fitness benefits, and employee clubs and activities).Lilly reserves the right to amend, modify, or terminate its compensation and benefit programs in its sole discretion and Lilly’s compensation practices and guidelines will apply regarding the details of any promotion or transfer of Lilly employees.

#WeAreLilly

Job details

Seniority
Principal
Function
Information Technology
Therapeutic area
Not listed
Location
Richmond, Virginia, United States of America
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 367 comparable Principal Information Technology roles across 36 biopharma companies.

367Comparable roles tracked
343Currently active
36Companies hiring similar roles
20Countries represented

Salary context

45 of 367 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)

Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.

This roleSubject $126,000/yr – $184,800/yr
Lowest disclosed · Senior Data Security Engineer (Insider Risk Management – Engineering) · AbbVie $0/hr – $0/hr (≈ $0–$0/yr)
Highest disclosed · Director, Product Management · $223,642/yr – $305,200/yr
Peer group range $0 – $264,421 (median $151,100)

Where these roles are based

Top locations among the 367 comparable roles

India197
United States74
Spain17
Poland14
Portugal11
Greece9

+ 14 more countries

Seniority mix

367 of 367 peers have a known seniority level

Senior290
Principal49
Director28

Therapeutic area mix

1 of 367 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.

60%similar
Roche Santa Clara, California, United States of America Principal
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Renss, United States Principal
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Genetics Center (USA) Tarrytown, United States Principal
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Renss, United States Principal
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Warren, United States Principal
Same function Same seniority Same country
60%similar
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) Tarrytown, United States Principal
Same function Same seniority 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.

60%
Principal Software Development Engineer
Roche · Santa Clara, California, United States of America · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Principal Automation Systems Administrator, Manufacturing & Lab Support
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) · Renss, United States · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Principal Business Analyst - Velocigene
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) · Tarrytown, United States · Principal
Function Therapeutic area Seniority Country
60%
Principal Business Analyst – Science Data Portal
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc (USA) · Tarrytown, United States · Principal
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.