Associate Director/Director , AI & Engineering

Syneos Health, Inc.; Hyderabad; On-site; INR 3,500,000 - 6,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Syneos Health in Hyderabad seeks an Associate Director/Director, AI & Engineering to lead engineering for complex products and AI-first platform initiatives. You will translate product strategy into multi-quarter roadmaps, govern architecture, and scale AI-driven delivery across teams, vendors, and managers.

You will mentor leaders, drive technical excellence, and ensure secure, observable, reliable systems while aligning with business outcomes in a fast-paced, global biopharma environment.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.
• Typically 12+ years of progressive software engineering and technology leadership experience, including substantial people-management responsibility.
• Proven ownership of a complex enterprise product or platform with multi-team delivery across full lifecycle.
• Demonstrated experience leading multiple teams and shaping engineering strategy with senior stakeholders.
• Strong breadth across architecture, cloud, APIs, distributed systems, data, DevSecOps, quality engineering, observability, reliability, security, governance.
• Practical leadership experience with AI/ML, Generative AI, AI governance, or AI-assisted engineering practices is preferred.

Responsibilities

• Owns engineering execution for a complex product or platform, or multiple teams across the full lifecycle.
• Translates product strategy into a multi-quarter engineering roadmap, investment priorities, staffing plan, and modernization agenda.
• Partners with product management, architecture, and operations to convert priorities into measurable outcomes.
• Leads cross-team planning, governance, risk and cost decisions, release coordination, and executive delivery communication.
• Establishes and governs engineering standards for architecture, secure coding, CI/CD, observability, and production readiness.
• Builds reusable patterns and durable platform capabilities through automation-first, API-first, cloud-native approaches.

Skills

AI/ML leadership

Cross-functional leadership

Architectural direction

GAI governance

People management

Metrics-driven leadership

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in CS/Engineering

Tools

Cloud platforms

CI/CD

APIs & microservices

Observability tooling

Job description

Updated: Yesterday
Location: Madhapur, TS, India
Job ID:25113908

Syneos Health® is a leading fully integrated biopharmaceutical solutions organization built to accelerate customer success. We translate unique clinical, medical affairs and commercial insights into outcomes to address modern market realities.

Every day we perform better because of how we work together, as one team, each the best at what we do. We bring a wide range of talented experts together across a wide range of business-critical services that support our business. Every role within Corporate is vital to furthering our vision of Shortening the Distance from Lab to Life®.

Discover what our 29,000 employees, across 110 countries already know.

WORK HERE MATTERS EVERYWHERE

Why Syneos Health

• We are passionate about developing our people, through career development and progression; supportive and engaged line management; technical and therapeutic area training; peer recognition and total rewards program.
• We are committed to our Total Self culture - where you can authentically be yourself. Our Total Self culture is what unites us globally, and we are dedicated to taking care of our people.
• We are continuously building the company we all want to work for and our customers want to work with. Why? Because when we bring together diversity of thoughts, backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives - we’re able to create a place where everyone feels like they belong.

Job Responsibilities

• Owns engineering execution for a complex product or platform, a related portfolio, or multiple teams across discovery, planning, design, build, test, release, adoption, production operations, and continuous improvement
• Translates product and business strategy into a multi-quarter engineering roadmap, investment priorities, staffing plan, modernization agenda, and measurable outcome framework
• Partners with Product Management, business stakeholders, Architecture, Quality Engineering, Data, Security, Compliance, and Operations to convert priorities into measurable customer and business outcomes
• Leads cross-team planning, dependency management, architecture governance, risk and cost decisions, release coordination, and transparent executive-level delivery communication
• Establishes and governs engineering standards for architecture and design reviews, secure coding, code review, automated testing, CI/CD, observability, performance, reliability, accessibility, documentation, and production readiness
• Uses business, product, flow, quality, reliability, cost, and talent metrics to improve predictability, deployment health, service resilience, developer experience, and business value
• Builds reusable engineering and AI patterns across products, reduces duplicated solutions, and creates durable platform capabilities through automation-first, API-first, cloud-native, and disciplined technical-debt practices
• Creates an AI-first culture that applies approved AI capabilities responsibly across the product development lifecycle, with human oversight, evaluation, traceability, privacy, security, intellectual-property protection, cost awareness, and measurable outcomes
• Leads managers, technical leaders, senior engineers, partners, and vendors; establishes decision rights, operating rhythms, performance expectations, capability plans, and succession depth across teams

QUALIFICATION REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.

• Typically 12+ years of progressive software engineering and technology leadership experience, including substantial people-management responsibility
• Proven ownership of a complex enterprise product or platform, related product portfolio, or multi-team delivery environment through the full product development lifecycle
• Demonstrated experience leading multiple teams and/or managers, shaping engineering strategy, managing cross-functional dependencies, and influencing senior stakeholders
• Strong technology breadth across architecture, cloud, APIs, distributed systems, data, DevSecOps, quality engineering, observability, reliability, security, and operational governance
• Track record of using business, product, delivery, quality, reliability, cost, and talent metrics to guide decisions and improve outcomes
• Practical leadership experience with AI/ML, Generative AI, Applied AI, RAG, AI agents, agentic workflows, LLMOps/ MLOps, AI evaluation, responsible AI governance, or AI-assisted engineering practices is preferred

Associate Director/Director , AI & Engineering

Get to know Syneos Health

Over the past 5 years, we have worked with 94% of all Novel FDA Approved Drugs, 95% of EMA Authorized Products and over 200 Studies across 73,000 Sites and 675,000+ Trial patients.

No matter what your role is, you'll take the initiative and challenge the status quo with us in a highly competitive and ever-changing environment. Learn more about Syneos Health.

Tasks, duties, and responsibilities as listed in this job description are not exhaustive. The Company, at its sole discretion and with no prior notice, may assign other tasks, duties, and job responsibilities. Equivalent experience, skills, and/or education will also be considered so qualifications of incumbents may differ from those listed in the Job Description. The Company, at its sole discretion, will determine what constitutes as equivalent to the qualifications described above. Further, nothing contained herein should be construed to create an employment contract. Occasionally, required skills/experiences for jobs are expressed in brief terms. Any language contained herein is intended to fully comply with all obligations imposed by the legislation of each country in which it operates, including the implementation of the EU Equality Directive, in relation to the recruitment and employment of its employees. The Company is committed to compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, including the provision of reasonable accommodations, when appropriate, to assist employees or applicants to perform the essential functions of the job.

Summary

The Director of Engineering provides senior engineering leadership for a complex product or platform, a portfolio of related products and projects, or multiple engineering teams. This role translates product and business strategy into engineering execution, builds capable leaders and teams, governs architecture and engineering quality, and scales an AI-first operating model. The Director connects product value, technology strategy, delivery governance, talent, and production outcomes across a broad span of control.

http://www.syneoshealth.com