21GRAMS- Senior Technology Lead

At Real Chemistry, making the world a healthier place isn’t just an aspiration—it’s our everyday reality. Our drive to transform healthcare is informed by our blend of deep scientific expertise, human-centred creativity, and AI-driven insights, fostering a unique environment where innovation thrives and our people are impact-obsessed. As a global agency, we provide a full suite of services across healthcare communications and marketing to our clients, including top players in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.

Our #LifeatRealChem culture is rooted in our people—we believe we are best together and are committed to excellence for both our clients and colleagues. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting your career, if you share our passion for healthcare and connection, we invite you to explore our opportunities.

Discover your purpose. Embrace innovation. Experience #LifeatRealChem.

Real Chemistry is looking for a Senior Technology Lead to join our growing team!

21GRAMS, Real Chemistry’s advertising agency, has done a lot in its first 5+ years. Known for our creativity, we've just been ranked as the #2 creative health agency in the world by Cannes Lions. It takes a team to do ambitious things, and our ambition is to help people connect with healthcare – by making advertising less of an interruption and more worth people’s time because it gets them. As an agency with the full capabilities of Real Chemistry at our fingertips, we’ve got endless potential.

At ROOM42 — 21GRAMS' in-house production company, content studio, and Digital & Technology services arm — we are seeking an AI-Forward Technical Lead who is simultaneously a craftsperson, a creative partner, and an accelerator. This person moves fluidly between writing production-quality code, protecting design intent through every build decision, and orchestrating AI tooling to compress the distance from concept to shipped experience. Whether the starting point is a client brief, a Figma file, or a napkin sketch, this Technical Lead is the person who figures out the fastest, most technically sound path to a working, beautiful, compliant deliverable — and builds it.

This role spans the full ROOM42 output spectrum: marketing websites, microsites, conference kiosks and panel experiences, interactive apps, and data-driven digital tools for healthcare and pharma clients. The ideal candidate has mastered the traditional web development lifecycle and is actively transforming it — using AI at every meaningful stage.

This is a hybrid role, based in any of our US offices—including New York City, Boston, Chicago, Carmel, Lambertville, or San Francisco—or remotely within the US, depending on team and business needs.

What you’ll do:

Build and Architect

Own end-to-end technical execution for ROOM42 deliverables — websites, microsites, interactive apps, conference kiosk and panel experiences, and real-world evidence platforms

Write and review production-quality code across the full stack; maintain a target of 50% direct hands-on contribution alongside leadership responsibilities

Architect solutions that balance speed-to-market with long-term maintainability, security, and accessibility compliance

Lead technical solutioning on new engagements — translating UX wireframes and creative briefs into clearly scoped, achievable builds

DevOps and Delivery Infrastructure:

Own Git workflows, branching strategy, and code review standards across all active ROOM42 builds

Maintain CI/CD pipelines for ROOM42's primary hosting environments (WP Engine, Pantheon, Acquia, Netlify/Vercel for JAMstack); make deployments repeatable and low-risk

Manage staging, UAT, and production environment configurations; provision and document access for all ROOM42 developers

Identify and implement automation opportunities across the DevOps lifecycle — from scaffolding new projects to post-deploy validation

AI-Augmented Design-to-Code Pipeline:

Operate Figma MCP server integration to accelerate design handoff — extracting tokens, components, and layout specs directly into code-ready outputs; eliminating manual interpretation cycles

Leverage AI code generation tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor AI) as daily build accelerators — not novelties — across front-end, back-end, and configuration work

Define and document ROOM42's AI-augmented build workflows for each deliverable type so the approach scales beyond a single practitioner

Stay ahead of emerging agentic tooling (MCP servers, AI browser agents, generative UI frameworks) and evaluate when adoption creates genuine delivery leverage

QA and Test Automation:

Implement AI-assisted QA automation across ROOM42 project types — visual regression testing, accessibility scanning, cross-browser checks, and functional testing pipelines

Establish a QA automation baseline for repeatable deliverable types (CMS sites, kiosk apps, email builds) so that human QA effort concentrates on edge cases and client-specific requirements

Triage technical defects surfaced by QA — classify root cause, assign or resolve remediation, verify fix integrity before re-advancing to UAT

Standards, Mentorship, and Team Health:

Define and maintain ROOM42's technical standards across deliverable types — coding conventions, repo structure, accessibility requirements, security baselines, deployment protocols

Conduct code reviews for all ROOM42 developers before deliverables advance to QA; enforce standards consistently and use reviews as teaching moments

Partner with RC's VP of Technology on standards alignment, tooling strategy, and team architecture as the practice scales

Lead technical onboarding for new ROOM42 hires — tool access, standards orientation, and first-week productivity within two weeks of start date

Serve as primary technical escalation point when blockers threaten delivery; resolve environment, integration, and access issues within 24 hours of identification

Technical Delivery:

Partner with Producers and TDMs on SOW scoping — translate creative and functional requirements into accurate technical estimates for hours, stack decisions, and phased rollout

Own the technical delivery lifecycle for key ROOM42 engagement from kickoff through post-launch, work with technical delivery managers to ensure timeline integrity, milestone readiness, and handoff completeness

Maintain a live view of technical progress across all active projects; proactively flag risks to Delivery Managers before they surface in status calls

Drive milestone gates: work closely with QA lead to ensure that what moves from development to QA to UAT to production is actually ready — not optimistically ready

Manage technical dependencies across concurrent projects (shared environments, overlapping APIs, licensing constraints) and surface conflicts before they collide

Own technical documentation throughout each engagement: architecture decisions, environment setup, API integration specs, deployment runbooks — so no knowledge lives only in one person's head

Participate in client-facing conversations where technical credibility matters — scoping sessions, risk discussions, demo walkthroughs — presenting clearly and without jargon

Quality Outcomes:

Define 'done' for every deliverable type — not just 'it works' but that it is performant, accessible, secure, cross-browser validated, and visually faithful to approved design

Own quality accountability end-to-end: if something ships broken, looks wrong, or fails an MLR technical review, this role is accountable for the root cause and the remediation

Work with QA lead to establish and maintain a ROOM42 quality checklist for each deliverable type — covering functional, visual, performance, accessibility, and security checks — so quality is structural, not ad hoc

Review developer output not only for code correctness but for UX implementation fidelity: does the built experience actually look and behave like the approved design?

Lead post-launch qualit