Principal Systems Engineer

Compensation Data

This position offers a base salary typically between $115,000 and $181,000. The position may be eligible for a role specific variable or performance based bonus and or other compensation elements.  For an overview of our benefits please click here. 

Description

The Principal Systems Engineer is a technical role within the IT M&S Application Support organization, accountable for the reliability, performance, and continual evolution of critical applications and services. Based in Ridgefield, CT, this role operates closely with key US business stakeholders, enabling quick feedback cycles, deep understanding of business processes, and facetofaceface-to-face collaboration that strengthens IT–business alignment. The position provides strategic technical guidance, ensures operational excellence, drives cross-functional alignment, and plays a critical role in US-driven initiatives, launches, field-facing engagements, and data-driven service improvements.

Our global presence provides opportunity for all employees to collaborate internationally, offering visibility and opportunity to directly contribute to the companies´ success. We realize that our strength and competitive advantage lie with our people. We support our employees in a number of ways to foster a healthy working environment, meaningful work, mobility, networking and work-life balance. Our competitive compensation and benefit programs reflect Boehringer Ingelheim´s high regard for our employees.

Duties & Responsibilities

Service Ownership, Operational Excellence & Continuous Improvement
•    Serve as the strategic and operational owner for assigned applications and services, accountable for end to end reliability, performance, compliance, and service quality. 
•    Define, maintain, and continuously improve service standards, operational KPIs, and support models. 
•    Monitor service health trends, proactively identify risks, and drive preventive and corrective actions. 
•    Lead major incident response from a technical and coordination perspective, ensuring rapid resolution and clear stakeholder communication. 
•    Champion simplification, automation, shift left strategies, and self service capabilities to improve efficiency and reduce operational overhead. 
•    Apply deep cross system and integration expertise to resolve complex, multi platform issues.
•    Identify systemic issues, recurring incidents, and capability gaps; lead root cause analysis and long term remediation planning. 
•    Drive a structured continuous improvement framework aligned to business priorities and industry best practices. 
•    Leverage in person collaboration with US teams to identify process gaps and improvement opportunities. 
•    Use AI enabled analytics to surface trends, root causes, and insights across large datasets. 
•    Influence application and service roadmaps by providing data driven operational insights and improvement recommendations.

Stakeholder Engagement, Documentation & Knowledge Management
•    Build strong, trust based relationships with business partners, product owners, IT teams, and support vendors. 
•    Act as the primary technical liaison for Veeva CRM, Vault CRM, and other strategic platforms requiring close collaboration with US stakeholders. 
•    Participate in key US business events, including sales conferences and launch planning, to support field teams, accelerate adoption, and ensure alignment. 
•    Provide field facing support during hypercare and critical business cycles to minimize disruption and optimize user experience. 
•    Lead workshops, operational reviews, and advisory sessions, and represent Application Support in cross functional forums to strengthen execution and outcomes.
•    Govern and maintain high quality service documentation, including knowledge articles, support models, operational procedures, and functional materials. 
•    Ensure documentation is accurate, user friendly, and aligned with UX best practices. 
•    Maintain operational repositories (service catalogs, system inventories, support models) to ensure accuracy and accessibility. 
•    Continuously improve documentation by incorporating insights from field engagement, job shadowing, and direct observation.

Application Transition, Onboarding & Governance
•    Lead onboarding of new or evolving applications and services, ensuring operational readiness and clear ownership across teams. 
•    Validate knowledge transfer completeness and ensure receiving teams have the skills and context required for effective support. 
•    Coordinate ITSM configuration, service definitions, workflows, and dependency mapping to enable seamless integration into operations. 
•    Represent Application Support in governance, quality, and escalation forums. 
•    Collaborate with architecture, delivery, security, data privacy, vendors, and global partners to align operational requirements. 
•    Support readiness for releases, deployments, country expansions, and major US business events. 
•    Contribute to global process governance by standardizing best practices and providing leadership with clear insights on service health, operational risk, vendor performance, and improvement opportunities.

Requirements

• Associate degree in Computer Science, MIS or a related field with 7 years experience; or Bachelor degree in Computer Science, MIS or a related field with 5 years of experience; or a Master in Computer Science, MIS, or related field with a minimum of 3 years of experience; or relevant Business or IT experience of a minimum of 7 years.

• Minimum 8 years of experience in Application Support, Systems Engineering, or related IT operational roles desired
• Minimum 3–5 years of experience leading cross-functional technical initiatives or vendor management.
• User of IT Service Management tools (e.g., ServiceNow or similar platforms).
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft 365 suite (Word, PowerPoint), Power BI, and Power Automate.
• Experience supporting US-based stakeholders, field teams, or business processes is highly beneficial. 
• Proven experience owning end-to-end service performance, operational strategy, and automation initiatives.Advanced expertise in ITIL v4 (Incident, Problem, Service Management).
• Strong strategic thinking with the ability to translate operational insights into long-term improvements.
• Excellent communication and facilitation skills; effective across global stakeholders and varying seniority levels.
• Strong influencing skills with ability to lead without direct authority.
• Proactive mindset with a strong sense of ownership, accountability, and continuous improvement.
• Strong organizational and prioritization skills; able to manage multiple services and initiatives.
• Ability to evaluate emerging trends, automation opportunities, and propose forward-looking enhancements.
• Expert user of IT Service Management tools (e.g., ServiceNow or similar platforms).
• Advanced proficiency with Microsoft 365 suite (Word, PowerPoint), Power BI, and Power Automate.
• 3–5 years supporting Salesforce/Veeva in global, multi-country environments. Basic–intermediate SOQL / SOSL for investigation and data validation

Desired Skills, Experience and Abilities

• Strong understanding of: Data Model (standard vs custom objects); Record types, page layouts, Lightning App Builder; Profiles, Permission Sets, Permission Set Groups: 
• Lightning Experience vs Classic nuances
• Strong troubleshooting capability across integrated applications, APIs, data interfaces, and identity systems.
• Familiarity with automation, monitoring tools, AI-powered analytics, and observability concepts.

Eligibility Requirements

• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without restriction.
• Must be willing to take a drug test and post-offer physical (if required).
• Must be 18 years of age or older.