Sr. Principal Associate - QC Analytical Equipment Support

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.  Lilly is currently constructing an advanced manufacturing facility for monoclonal antibodies, and bioconjugates in Goochland County, Virginia. This facility is intended to provide capacity for current and future products.  This is a unique opportunity to be a part of the leadership team for the startup of a manufacturing site, and the successful candidate will help to build the organization, the facility and the culture to enable a successful startup into GMP manufacturing operations.  P o sition Overview: This role ensures the reliability and performance of analytical laboratory equipment by overseeing maintenance, calibration, and troubleshooting activities across a range of instruments. It also supports equipment lifecycle management by coordinating installations, qualifications, and vendor interactions to maintain compliance and readiness for routine testing. This position is a recognized expert who makes key technical decisions impacting multiple teams, leads the resolution of highly complex challenges, and influences technical strategy across functions. The role delivers innovations with cross-functional impact, leads significant initiatives, mentors outside their own discipline, and serves as an effective supporter of culture change. Responsibilities : Manage routine and corrective maintenance, scheduled calibrations, and preventative maintenance on analytical laboratory instruments such as HPLC systems, spectrophotometers, balances, and incubators to ensure optimal working conditions. Monitor equipment performance, diagnose technical issues, execute first-line repairs, and serve as the on-site point person for vendor field service engineers and global support teams. Collaborate on the installation and qualification of new equipment through IQ/OQ/PQ activities, support change controls with technical input, and ensure instruments are properly requalified before release back to routine use. Execute all Quality Control activities in a timely manner, in compliance with applicable SOPs, methods/protocols, good documentation practices, data integrity standards (ALCOA+), cGMPs, EHS requirements, chemical hygiene, and biosafety guidelines, maintaining an ongoing state of inspection readiness and providing support during audits and inspections as requested. Identify and escalate atypical results and potential deviations, participate in root cause investigations and corrective/preventive actions, contribute to cross-functional teams and continuous improvement initiatives, and maintain training competencies to ensure only qualified work is performed. Lead QC analytical equipment onboarding for the new Richmond site, including defining instrument needs based on planned testing scope, selecting instruments from the AIQ marketplace, coordinating procurement and installation, and ensuring all equipment is fully qualified (IQ/OQ/PQ) and available for use prior to support site startup and routine testing.

Minimum of a bachelor's degree in a science, Engineering, or a related discipline. 7+ years of experience supporting analytical equipment within a GMP-regulated QC environment. Additional Skills/Preferences: Prior experience performing preventive maintenance, calibration, and corrective maintenance on a broad range of QC analytical instruments (e.g., HPLC, GC,