Data Engineering & Analytics Lead - Pharma

Merck; Wilson (NC); Hybrid; USD 142,000 - 224,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical

Dental

Vision

401(k)

Paid holidays

Vacation

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

Business Decisions

Business Informatics

Business Intelligence

Business Requirements Analysis

Data Access

Data Aggregation

Database Administration

Data Engineering

Data Management

Data Modeling

Data Stewardship

Data Strategies

Data Visualization

Data Warehousing

Delivery Management

Design Applications

Enterprise Data Management

Feature Prioritization

Implementation Methodologies

Information Management

Insight Generation

Software Development

SDLC

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering/Pharma/Data Science/IT/CS

MS degree preferred

Tools

DataLynx

SEQ

MPI

MES

Historians

Job description

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