Associate Director Engineering (Hybird)

Merck; Rahway (NJ); Hybrid; USD 142,000 - 224,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance

401(k) retirement benefits

Paid holidays and vacation

Job summary

Merck is seeking an Associate Director for Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence to lead the shift to governed data foundations and production-grade intelligent agents. The role combines technical leadership with business acumen to drive AI-ready platforms and scalable solutions across DSCS.

You will own end-to-end programs, shape architecture, and mentor teams while partnering with business leaders to demonstrate value realization through decisions improved and outcomes delivered.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in data engineering, software development, BI, data science, AI/ML, or related technical field, including leading projects/teams.
• Ph.D. with 4+ years, M.S. with 6+ years, or B.S. with 7+ years of relevant experience.
• Deep technical judgment with business acumen in data, AI, and analytics.

Responsibilities

• Shape and advance the agentic intelligence agenda for DSCS Digital Operations with a prioritized roadmap.
• Own definable projects across full lifecycle: design, build, deployment, adoption, sustainment.
• Exercise independent technical and business judgment on what to build and standardize.
• Translate complex challenges into technical roadmaps, architectures, and measurable outcomes.
• Establish engineering standards, version control, docs, testing, and release-readiness controls.

Skills

Python

SQL

Databricks

Dataverse

Power Platform

GitHub

Copilot Studio

Gemini/Vertex AI

AI/ML

CI/CD

Stakeholder Management

Electronic data governance

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, IT, or related

Tools

GitHub

Copilot Studio

Databricks

Power Platform

Job description

Associate Director, Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence (m/f/d)

Digital is the multiplier that will allow Development Sciences and Clinical Supply (DSCS) to deliver better experiments faster, efficient filing and launch, more robust supply chains and higher-confidence decisions across the portfolio. The DSCS Digital Technologies (DDT) organization is tasked with the mission to pioneer and deploy innovative digital technologies that drive the acquisition, automation and utilization of data to enhance insights, efficiency, and quality of DSCS processes and methods.

The Associate Director, Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence is a senior technical leader within the Agentic Intelligence team, responsible for advancing the organization’s shift from traditional business intelligence and manual reporting toward governed, AI-ready data foundations and production-grade intelligent agents. The role pairs deep technical judgment with business acumen: identifying where agentic AI and decision intelligence create the greatest value, shaping the solutions that deliver it, and ensuring those capabilities are trusted, adopted, and sustained across DSCS.

This is a role for an experienced leader who operates with a high degree of independence, owning definable programs end to end, setting technical direction, prioritizing based on business value and risk, coaching talent, and contributing directly or indirectly to the strategy of the Agentic Intelligence group. The Associate Director remains credible and current across the modern data and AI stack, including Python, SQL, Databricks, Dataverse, Power BI, GitHub, Copilot Studio, Gemini/Vertex AI or comparable enterprise AI platforms, and Microsoft Power Platform, and applies that depth to solution architecture, design review, and evaluation as much as to hands-on delivery.

The Associate Director, Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence Will

• Shape and advance the agentic intelligence agenda for DSCS Digital Operations, identifying where agents, data products, and automation create the greatest business value, and translating that into a prioritized, sequenced roadmap.
• Own definable projects and programs across their full lifecycle, including design, build, evaluation, deployment, adoption, and sustainment, for governed data products, reporting solutions, automations, and intelligent agents.
• Exercise independent technical and business judgment on what to build, what to standardize, what to retire, and what to decline, balancing value, risk, effort, and long-term maintainability.
• Translate complex business challenges into technical roadmaps, solution designs, agent architectures, evaluation frameworks, and measurable outcomes, anticipating stakeholder needs.
• Establish and champion disciplined engineering and governance standards, including version control, documentation, testing, reusable patterns, and release-readiness controls, so solutions scale beyond their original use case.
• Lead teams and projects, act as a resource across multiple areas, and identify, train, and coach talent to raise the capability of individuals and the group.
• Partner with business leaders to drive adoption and demonstrate value realization, so success is measured by decisions improved and outcomes delivered, not solutions shipped.

Key Responsibilities

• Agentic AI Strategy & Delivery: Direct the design, delivery, and lifecycle governance of intelligent agents and AI-enabled workflows, establishing reusable patterns and appropriate human oversight.
• AI-Ready Data Foundations: Set direction for the data pipelines, semantic layers, and reusable data products that make DSCS data trusted, discoverable, and fit for AI-enabled use.
• Business Intelligence, Applications & Automation: Oversee delivery of dashboards, applications, and workflow automations that allow users to act on insights within their day-to-day processes.
• Solution Architecture & Design Review: Define reference architectures and integration patterns for agentic and data solutions, and lead design reviews that ensure choices are sound, scalable, and consistent across the team.
• Decision Intelligence & Value Realization: Collaborate with the Decision Intelligence and Change Management team to align agentic and data solutions to established decision frameworks, KPIs, and adoption measures, and supply the delivery and usage evidence needed to demonstrate business value.
• Evaluation, Quality & Responsible Deployment: Establish evaluation and testing standards for agents, data, and reporting solutions so they remain accurate, monitored, secure, and responsibly deployed.
• Engineering Standards, CI/CD & Release Management: Establish source control, code review, automated testing, and CI/CD practices, and define the gated promotion path from development through test to production so releases are repeatable, evidenced, and approved.
• Documentation & Knowledge Management: Set the standard for design documents, runbooks, decision logs, and handover materials so solutions are transferable, supportable, and not dependent on any single individual.
• Production Operations, Monitoring & Support: Own the sustainment model for deployed solutions, including performance monitoring, issue triage, user support, and the retirement or rework of capabilities that no longer deliver value.
• Security, Compliance & Data Governance: Partner with data product owners, enterprise IT, cybersecurity, privacy, and quality functions to ensure solutions meet access control, data classification, auditability, and GxP or regulatory expectations where applicable.
• Team Leadership & Talent Development: Lead project teams, mentor engineers and analysts across varied technical backgrounds, and raise the technical bar through coaching, code review, and shared learning.
• Innovation & Emerging Technology Evaluation: Stay current on emerging models, platforms, and agentic patterns, run structured evaluations, and recommend where new capabilities should be adopted, piloted, or deferred.

Required Experience And Skills

• Experience: 7+ years of experience in data engineering, software development, business intelligence, data science, AI/ML, or a related technical field, including demonstrated experience leading projects and/or teams (Ph.D. with 4+ years, M.S. with 6+ years, or B.S. with 7+ years of relevant experience).
• Technical Depth & Credibility: Hands-on expertise with Python and SQL, with the technical standing to architect, review, challenge, and optimize solution designs, data models, code, and queries across data transformation, analysis, automation, and reporting use cases.
• Data Engineering Foundation: Deep working knowledge of data pipelines, data modeling, data quality, semantic layers, metadata, lineage, and structured data products, with experience in Databricks, Dataverse, cloud data platforms, or comparable enterprise data environments.
• Agentic AI & LLM Solutions: Demonstrated experience building and orchestrating Generative AI, Large Language Model, and agentic workflow solutions using Copilot Studio, Gemini/Vertex AI, Microsoft Power Platform, retrieval-augmented generation, workflow orchestration, and responsible AI practices, including agent evaluation and monitoring.
• Engineering Practices: Strong command of GitHub or comparable source-control systems, including repositories, branching, pull requests, code review, version control, and CI/CD, with hands-on experience using AI coding assistants and coding agents (e.g., GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor) to accelerate delivery, including the judgment to review, test, and validate AI-generated code.
• Business Value & Decision Judgment: Demonstrated ability to prioritize and sequence work based on business value, risk, and feasibility; define KPIs, adoption metrics, and value realization measures; and make defensible decisions about what to advance, standardize, or retire in partnership with business stakeholders.
• Testing, Evaluation & Governance Mindset: Ability to establish evaluation frameworks, define test strategies, identify failure modes, validate data and answer quality, and apply principles for secure and responsible AI deployment, including access control, privacy, auditability, human oversight, monitoring, and escalation.
• Independent Leadership & Talent Development: Proven ability to lead projects and teams of moderate complexity with limited direction, set technical direction, identify and coach talent, and contribute directly or indirectly to strategy-setting for a technical group.
• Communication, Stakeholder Management & Adoption: Excellent written and verbal communication, with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for audiences, manage senior stakeholders, facilitate working sessions, drive organizational adoption, and write concise technical documentation.
• Collaboration & Regulated Environment Awareness: Collaborative leadership mindset, attention to detail, and familiarity with pharmaceutical, biotech, GxP, or other regulated environments.

Education

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, Information Technology, or a related field required; advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) preferred, or equivalent experience.

Required Skills

Data Compliance, Data-Driven Decision Making, Data Management Platforms, Data Structures, Design for Maintainability, Drug Product Development, Estimation and Planning, GitHub, Implementation Methodologies, Manufacturing Quality Control, Prioritization, Process Control Automation, Production System, Python (Programming Language), SQL Databases

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 if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

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.

Employee Status

Regular

Relocation

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship

Yes

Travel Requirements

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements

Hybrid

Shift

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License

No

Hazardous Material(s)

n/a

Job Posting End Date

09/22/2026

• 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.

Requisition ID

R416762

The salary range for this role is

$142,400.00 - $224,100.00

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.