Principal Engineer – TSMS Packaging

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.

The TSMS Packaging Principal Engineer is a technical position that provides technical oversight and leadership for packaging materials, equipment, and operations at the Lilly Kenosha County (LKC) site. As LKC is a greenfield site, this role will be foundational in standing up the packaging technical program — from equipment and packaging line design input, through tech transfer and process validation (PV), to sustaining commercial support.

Upon the start of commercial production, the role's objectives shift to maintaining the validated state of applicable processes, monitoring metrics to ensure a state of control and capability, harmonizing control strategies across process teams, driving continuous improvement, and serving as an escalation point for day-to-day packaging operations issues. Primary objective s include the start-up and compliant manufacturing of LKC products, including implementation of the packaging process control and validation strategy.

The Packaging Engineer is responsible for providing technical support for the processes, materials, systems, and equipment associated with packaging. The scope of the role includes packaging for products transferred to and/or launched at the LKC site. While this role is not expected to be the technical expert on all products and platforms, it is expected to be the site expert in the regulatory, internal, and other requirements governing packaging.

A key part of this role is ensuring consistency in approach and process across the product lifecycle — from tech transfer through regulatory submission and into routine manufacturing — and in aligning LKC's technical approach with sister DAP sites as the network matures. The role also develops and implements a technical agenda and serves as a mentor within the TSMS team, engaging in upstream and external-to-site activities related to packaging.

• Understand the scientific principles required for packaging combination drug products, including the interaction of chemistry, equipment, aseptic processes, and container closure systems.
• Serve as a technical SME during the design, build, and commissioning phases at a greenfield site, providing manufacturing science input into packaging line, equipment, and material design to support future tech transfer and validation.
• Own the technical agenda for the LKC Packaging TSMS program.
• Provide technical oversight for packaging materials, including serving as site lead for printed packaging materials and serialization as the program matures.
• Provide packaging technical support to operations with respect to materials, equipment, and processes.
• Lead technical evaluations and problem resolution, including troubleshooting and root cause analysis.
• Lead risk assessments of packaging operations and packaging material suppliers.
• Provide technical support for all start-up activities (e.g., tech transfer, equipment/process qualification, process validation) ahead of and through PV.
• Provide technical support for non-routine investigations (e.g., deviations, complaints), including consultation on…