Associate Director, Clinical Process Transformation

AbbVie Inc.; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 142,000 - 269,000; Full time

Job summary

AbbVie Inc. is seeking an Associate Director, Clinical Process Engineer in San Francisco to lead the process design and engineering practice within Clinical Development Operations. You will set standards, governance, and an inspection-ready framework across the enterprise.

You will partner with quality, regulatory, and senior leadership to shape strategy, drive capability investments, and build a scalable, high-impact process engineering team in a complex, global organization.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in engineering, life sciences, business, or a related field required; advanced degree strongly preferred.
• Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or equivalent preferred; Green Belt required.
• Minimum 8 years of demonstrated experience in process design, process engineering, and/or process improvement within a regulated environment.

Responsibilities

• Define and own the clinical process engineering methodology, standards, and toolset across Clinical Development Operations; drive adoption and evolution.
• Serve as the enterprise subject matter authority on clinical process design for senior leadership on strategy and investments.
• Oversee end-to-end clinical processes ensuring coherence, scalability, and inspection readiness.
• Lead enterprise-level current-state assessments and translate findings into capability roadmaps.
• Design and lead enterprise-wide process workshops and governance forums with executive stakeholders.
• Establish process compliance, inspection readiness, and quality-by-design frameworks across the function.
• Lead cross-enterprise process-to-system programs and ensure integrity of inputs to platforms.
• Own the process performance measurement framework and present insights to governance bodies.
• Set documentation standards and maintain audit readiness across Clinical Development Operations.

Skills

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

Green Belt

8+ years experience in process design/

process mapping

lead enterprise-level programs

strong written and verbal comms

team leadership

enterprise governance

Education

Bachelor's degree in engineering/ lifesciences/ business

Advanced degree preferred

Job description

AbbVie Inc. is seeking an Associate Director, Clinical Process Engineer in San Francisco to lead the process design and engineering practice within Clinical Development Operations. You will set standards, governance, and an inspection-ready framework across the enterprise.

You will partner with quality, regulatory, and senior leadership to shape strategy, drive capability investments, and build a scalable, high-impact process engineering team in a complex, global organization.