Associate Director, Data Engineering and Analytics
Merck
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Benefits offered by this job
Job summary
Merck is seeking an Associate Director, Data Engineering and Analytics within Small Molecule Science & Technology (SM S&T) to translate data priorities into scalable solutions across business, science, and manufacturing. The role demands independent leadership of complex data initiatives in a regulated environment.
The candidate will partner with Digital Manufacturing, IT, and Global Operations to enable data accessibility, analytics capability, and data-driven decision-making across Drug
Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Data Science, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline with eight (8) years of required experience (MS with 6).
- Significant experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing, technical operations, data engineering, analytics, or related digital roles in a regulated environment.
- Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical workstreams and deliver results across matrixed organizations.
- Strong understanding of manufacturing processes and unit operations across Drug Substance, Drug Product, Packaging, and Analytical Sciences.
- Experience designing or supporting data pipelines, analytical data products, dashboards, or scalable analytics solutions.
- Strong ability to translate between technical and business stakeholders and influence without direct authority.
Responsibilities
- Lead execution of complex data engineering and analytics initiatives aligned to SM S&T priorities.
- Translate business needs into practical implementation plans, technical requirements, and measurable value outcomes.
- Independently manage high-impact workstreams, including milestones, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder alignment.
- Ensure analytics efforts remain anchored in well-defined business problems and deliver practical, scalable value.
- Serve as a credible technical partner across business, manufacturing, scientific, and digital teams.
- Convert complex processes, operational, and business needs into scalable analytical and data engineering solutions.
- Bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders to support alignment, clarity, and execution.
- Influence cross-functional teams where coordinated delivery is required to achieve business outcomes.
- Lead the design and enhancement of robust data pipelines, data flows, and curated datasets supporting analytics use cases.
- Improve the quality, contextualization, and accessibility of manufacturing and process data across SM S&T.
- Support scalable approaches for integrating data from source systems into analytical environments.
- Enable scientists and engineers to more effectively access and use data for process monitoring, investigations, and lifecycle management.
- Drive deployment and sustained use of analytics capabilities across Drug Substance, Drug Product, Packaging, and Analytical Sciences.
- Apply technical understanding of manufacturing and unit operations to ensure solutions are practical and fit for purpose.
- Support development of repeatable methods, user enablement, and working practices that improve adoption beyond centralized expertise.
- Represent technical considerations, dependencies, and value drivers in prioritization and governance discussions.
- Partner with business and digital stakeholders to clarify high-value use cases and delivery sequencing.
- Track progress, adoption, and value realization for assigned initiatives.
- Identify and escalation delivery risks, tradeoffs, and resource constraints in a timely manner.
Skills
Education
Tools
Job description
Within Small Molecule Science & Technology (SM S&T), we are advancing digital and data capabilities that strengthen technical operations, accelerate insight generation, and improve business outcomes across the product lifecycle. The Associate Director, Data Engineering and Analytics will play a critical individual contributor role in translating SM S&T data and analytics priorities into scalable solutions, sustained adoption, and measurable value.
Reporting to the recently created, Director of Data Engineering and analytics, this role will lead complex data engineering and analytics initiatives that sit at the intersection of business, science, manufacturing, engineering, and digital technology. The successful candidate will serve as a trusted technical partner across a highly matrixed environment, working across SM S&T, Digital Manufacturing Division, Digital CMC, MPI, IT, and Global Pharmaceutical Operations to advance data accessibility, analytical capability, and data-driven decision-making.
This role requires strong technical depth, sound judgment, and the ability to independently lead workstreams, influence stakeholders, and deliver practical solutions in a regulated environment.
- Lead execution of complex data engineering and analytics initiatives aligned to SM S&T priorities
- Translate business needs into practical implementation plans, technical requirements, and measurable value outcomes
- Independently manage high-impact workstreams, including milestones, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder alignment
- Ensure analytics efforts remain anchored in well-defined business problems and deliver practical, scalable value
- Serve as a credible technical partner across business, manufacturing, scientific, and digital teams
- Convert complex processes, operational, and business needs into scalable analytical and data engineering solutions
- Bridge technical and non-technical stakeholders to support alignment, clarity, and execution
- Influence cross-functional teams where coordinated delivery is required to achieve business outcomes
- Lead the design and enhancement of robust data pipelines, data flows, and curated datasets supporting analytics use cases
- Improve the quality, contextualization, and accessibility of manufacturing and process data across SM S&T
- Support scalable approaches for integrating data from source systems into analytical environments
- Enable scientists and engineers to more effectively access and use data for process monitoring, investigations, and lifecycle management
- Drive deployment and sustained use of analytics capabilities across Drug Substance, Drug Product, Packaging, and Analytical Sciences
- Apply technical understanding of manufacturing and unit operations to ensure solutions are practical and fit for purpose
- Support development of repeatable methods, user enablement, and working practices that improve adoption beyond centralized expertise
- Represent technical considerations, dependencies, and value drivers in prioritization and governance discussions
- Partner with business and digital stakeholders to clarify high-value use cases and delivery sequencing
- Track progress, adoption, and value realization for assigned initiatives
- Identify and escalation delivery risks, tradeoffs, and resource constraints in a timely manner
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Data Science, Information Technology, Computer Science, or a related technical discipline with eight (8) years of required experience (MS with 6).
- Significant experience in pharmaceutical manufacturing, technical operations, data engineering, analytics, or related digital roles in a regulated environment
- Demonstrated ability to independently lead complex technical workstreams and deliver results across matrixed organizations
- Strong understanding of manufacturing processes and unit operations across Drug Substance, Drug Product, Packaging, and/or Analytical Sciences
- Experience designing or supporting data pipelines, analytical data products, dashboards, or scalable analytics solutions
- Strong ability to translate between technical and business stakeholders and influence without direct authority
- Demonstrated ability to work effectively across multiple functions, balance priorities, and manage ambiguity
Travel to manufacturing sites may be required, estimated at
- Advanced degree in a related technical discipline
- Experience with manufacturing data and analytics platforms such as DataLynx, SEEQ, MPI, MES, historians, or similar technologies
Business Decisions, Business Decisions, Business Informatics, Business Intelligence (BI), Business Requirements Analysis, Business Workflow Analysis, Data Access, Data Aggregation, Database Administration, Data Engineering, Data Management, Data Modeling, Data Stewardship, Data Strategies, Data Visualization, Data Warehousing (DW), Delivery Management, Design Applications, Enterprise Data Management, Feature Prioritization, Implementation Methodologies, Information Management, Insight Generation, Software Development, Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) {+ 2 more}
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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:
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The primary location for this posting is:
USA - New Jersey - Rahway
Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.
The salary range for the primary location of this role is: $142,400.00 - $224,100.00
This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of 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
- compassionate and sick days
More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.
Please note the salary range above applies to the Primary Location of the position. Where a role has other listed locations, different compensation guidelines may apply. You may find the salary ranges for additional locations below. If the salary range is not listed for the location you are applying to, our Talent Acquisition team will provide further information to you relevant to your location.
We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance
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
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.
Regular
No relocation
No
10%
Hybrid
1st - Day
No
N/A
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.
- Job Posting End Date: 10/30/2026
Requisition ID: R421439
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