Assoc. Dir, Agentic Standards & Context Intelligence

Merck; Rahway (NJ); Hybrid; USD 173,000 - 273,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k)

Medical insurance

Dental insurance

Vision insurance

Paid time off

Job summary

Merck is establishing a GenAI & Agentic Center of Excellence to define standards, reusable frameworks, and shared context foundations for enterprise-grade AI agents across the commercial portfolio. The team will drive adoption, governance, and measurable improvements in context quality to support trusted AI in a regulated environment.

The role leads a technical team, partners with governance, data, product, and platform functions, and influences enterprise-wide standards while delivering

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in a STEM field and related experience in AI/ML.
• Experience defining technical standards and adoption in a large org.
• Hands-on understanding of GenAI agent lifecycle and governance.

Responsibilities

• Define and evolve playbooks, specifications, and standards across agent lifecycle.
• Own context layer strategy including ontology, knowledge graph, and glossary.
• Elevate context handling as measurable platform infrastructure.
• Drive adoption of standards through enablement content and starter kits.
• Align CoE standards with enterprise architecture and governance.
• Lead cross-functional teams and mentor technical staff.

Skills

GenAI lifecycle

Context engineering

Standards governance

Leadership

Stakeholder management

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/Data Science

Tools

Knowledge Graphs

Ontology

Job description

Job Description

Generative and agentic AI are reshaping how commercial teams work - from how insights are surfaced, to how content is created and reviewed, to how decisions are made in market. To move at the speed of that opportunity without compromising on trust, compliance, or quality, the Human Health Division is scaling a GenAI & Agentic Center of Excellence: the team that defines the standards, reusable frameworks, and shared context foundations used to build, evaluate, and ship enterprise-grade AI agents across the commercial portfolio.

As adoption expands across therapeutic areas, business units, and international markets, two things determine whether agents scale well: an opinionated, well-governed rulebook that every agent team can start from, and a shared context foundation so that agents reason with consistent business meaning rather than re-interpret raw data differently each time. Standards without context produce compliant but analytically wrong agents; context without standards produces inconsistency at scale.

Primary Responsibilities include:

• Standards vision and roadmap: Defining and evolving playbooks, specifications, and technical standards across the full agent lifecycle (design, deploy, monitor, improve), and driving them from research-backed drafts through use-case-validated versions.




• Context intelligence strategy: Owning the strategy for the shared, governed context layer - ontology, knowledge graph, semantic definitions, metric registries, and business glossary - so agents reason with consistent commercial meaning (brands, channels, vendors, KPIs) rather than raw table lookups.




• Context as infrastructure: Elevating context handling to a first-class, measurable component of the platform, with instrumentation, lifecycle controls, versioning, and health metrics (accuracy, freshness, compliance) that make context quality continuously measurable and improvable at scale.




• Standards adoption and enablement: Driving socialization and adoption of agentic standards and context patterns across business, CoE, and platform teams through enablement content, starter kits, reference patterns, and developer-facing integrations.




• Enterprise alignment: Aligning CoE standards and context approaches with broader enterprise architecture, data, and governance functions - clarifying CoE vs. enterprise responsibilities and influencing enterprise-level standards.




• Cross-pillar partnership: Partnering with responsible-AI, governance, engagement, and platform teams to translate standards and context capabilities into reusable delivery patterns and operational practices.




• Measurement and continuous improvement: Establishing metrics for standards adoption, context quality, and business impact, and running feedback loops that translate developer and business input into standards and context revisions.




• Team leadership: Leading, coaching, and scaling a team of technical specialists across standards authorship, context engineering, and adoption.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related STEM field




• Experience defining and driving adoption of technical standards, playbooks, or frameworks in a large, matrixed organization




• Hands-on understanding of the GenAI agent lifecycle (design, deploy, monitor, improve), including retrieval-Augmented generation, tool use, orchestration, evaluation, and guardrails




• Experience with context engineering concepts applied to AI systems — grounding, retrieval strategy, semantic definitions, or shared context layers




• Experience influencing senior stakeholders across engineering, data, product, and enterprise governance functions

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in a regulated industry (pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial services) with audit and compliance obligations




• Experience designing or governing ontology, knowledge graph, semantic layer, business glossary, or metric registry capabilities for analytics or AI consumption




• Experience instrumenting context or data quality metrics (accuracy, freshness, compliance, lineage) as measurable platform health signals




• Experience with evaluation-driven and specification-driven development practices for AI agents




• Experience standing up or scaling an AI center of excellence, platform governance function, or standards program with measurable adoption outcomes




• Experience leading and mentoring a technical team spanning standards and data/context disciplines

Required Skills

Agentic AI Standards, AI Governance, AI Playbook Development, Change Management, Context Engineering, Cross-Functional Collaboration, Generative AI (GenAI), Governance Frameworks, Knowledge Graphs & Ontology, Large Language Models (LLMs), Multi-Agent Systems, People Leadership, Program Management, Responsible AI, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), Semantic Layer Design, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Standards Adoption, Strategic Communications, Technical Leadership

Preferred Skills

Access-Aware Retrieval, Agent Evaluation, Agent Observability, Business Glossary & Metric Registry Design, Context Health Metrics (Accuracy, Freshness, Compliance), Data Governance for AI, Enterprise Architecture Influence, MLOps / LLMOps, Prompt Engineering Libraries, Regulated-Industry AI Experience

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here (https://survey.sogosurvey.com/r/aCdfqL) if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

EEOC Know Your Rights (https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/22-088_EEOC_KnowYourRights_10_20.pdf)

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We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights, including under California, Colorado and other US State Acts (https://www.msdprivacy.com/us/en/CCPA-notice/)

San Francisco Residents Only:

We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:

We will consider for employment all qualified applicants, including those with criminal histories, in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws, including the City of Los Angeles' Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

***A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day** BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

No relocation

VISA Sponsorship:

No

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

10/14/2026

***A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day** BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.

The salary range for this role is

$173,200.00 - $272,600.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits .