Associate Director, Pharmaceutical Data Engineer

Merck & Co.; West Point (PA); On-site; USD 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Merck & Co. seeks an Associate Director, Digital Operations to shift the organization from traditional BI to a modern data foundation.

You will lead data engineering, build custom WebApps, and deploy agentic AI models to improve insights and supply chain decisions. You will translate business needs into technical requirements, collaborate with cross-functional teams across drug substance, drug product, and distribution, and drive architectural initiatives for future-ready systems.

Qualifications

• Experience translating business needs into technical requirements for data/automation projects.
• Strong foundation in data pipelines, data modeling, and scalable architecture.
• Experience designing and deploying agentic AI workflows or ML models.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines and data foundations.
• Develop custom WebApps to support business operations and data interaction.
• Explore and deploy AI/Agentic models to automate decision-making processes.
• Collaborate with data architects to ensure secure, scalable data models.
• Manage code and deployment using modern tools (GitHub, VS Code).
• Work with stakeholders across supply chain and manufacturing teams.

Skills

Data engineering

AI/ML modeling

Web app development

Code management

Stakeholder translation

Tools

Databricks

Python

Dataverse

SQL

SAP

MES

LIMS

React Platform

VS Code

GitHub

Job description

Job Description

Position Overview:

Digital-is the multiplier that will allow Development Sciences and Clinical Supply to deliver better experiments faster, efficient filing and launch, more robust supply chains and higher-confidence decisions across the portfolio. The Development Sciences and Clinical Supply Digital-Technologies 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 Development Sciences and Clinical Supply processes and methods. The Development Sciences and Clinical Supply Digital Technologies organization within our Company Research Laboratories is accountable for driving the digital transformation, data architecture, and technology solutions that enable the execution and operations of the Development Sciences and Clinical Supply ecosystem.

The Associate Director, Digital Operations, is a highly technical role responsible for shifting the organization from traditional BI reporting to a robust, modern data foundation. This role will heavily focus on data engineering, building custom web applications, and deploying advanced AI/Agentic models to solve complex business problems. The data underpinning this work spans the end-to-end clinical and commercial supply chain - from drug substance manufacturing and process orders through drug product packaging, quality notifications, and global distribution.

The Associate Director, Digital Operations, will:

• Execute solutions to business needs by designing, building, and implementing modern data foundations and pipelines.
• Employ innovation and technology solutions (e.g., Databricks, Python, Agentic AI) to manage data and generate advanced insights more effectively.
• Develop custom web applications (WebApps) for Proof-of-Concept solutions that will later be industrialized in our React Platform.
• Work strategically and tactically to streamline processes and eliminate manual work through advanced automation and machine learning.
• Contribute to the advancement of the Data Strategy and Strategic Roadmap, supporting the organization's transition toward future-ready systems and intelligent data architectures.

Primary Activities:

• Data Engineering & Foundations: Design, build, and optimize scalable data pipelines and architectures leveraging Databricks, Python, Dataverse, and advanced SQL - transforming raw SAP, MES, LIMS, and other Operational -data from drug substance and drug product manufacturing and supply operations into highly accessible, analytics-ready data foundations.
• Requirements Translation: Act as a critical bridge between business and technology by deeply understanding stakeholder needs - working with supply chain planners, quality teams, and manufacturing stakeholders across drug substance and drug product functions - and accurately translating those needs into clear business requirements and precise technical specifications for development.
• Agentic Modeling & AI: Design, test, and implement agentic AI workflows and machine learning models to automate decision-making processes and generate proactive business insights.
• Web Application Development: Develop and deploy custom, user-friendly WebApps to support business operations, data entry, and interaction with underlying data models.
• Development & Code Management: Utilize modern development environments (VS Code) and AI coding assistants (Cline) alongside GitHub for robust version control of scripts, applications, and data models to ensure code quality.
• Systems Architecture: Work closely with data architects to ensure scalable, secure, and efficient data models that support both analytical and transactional workloads.