Director, Agent Intelligence

Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc (US); Boston (MA); Hybrid; USD 216,000 - 325,000; Full time

Job summary

Vertex Pharmaceuticals seeks an experienced AI engineering leader to build and operate the Agent Intelligence layer—memory, personas, skills, and flagship agents—that make Vertex AI agents grounded, consistent, and effective. You will own the four primitives that agents are built from and lead reusable building blocks for enterprise-wide use.

As Director of Agent Intelligence, you will guide policy, design patterns, and tool catalogs, driving collaboration across data, research, and business

Qualifications

• Hands-on experience building production AI agents using frameworks like LangChain/LangGraph.
• Extensive work with Snowflake Cortex AI and/or Databricks AI in enterprise settings.
• Ability to design reusable agent abstractions, persona frameworks, tool catalogs.

Responsibilities

• Design, build, and operate the Agent Intelligence primitives (memory, personas, skills).
• Define and enforce enterprise standards for agent orchestration and UX.
• Lead flagship agent development for high-value use cases and governance across teams.
• Collaborate with data, research, and product partners to scale agent solutions.
• Coach and lead technical teams, communicating with executives and stakeholders.

Skills

AI Agent Expertise

Cloud AI Platforms

Full-Stack AI Engineering

Memory & State Design

Production Operations

Leadership & Communication

Pharma or Life Sciences Context

Platform Primitive Design

Agent Evaluation Tooling

Model Customization

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

Snowflake Cortex AI

Databricks AI

Braintrust

LangSmith

Mosaic AI Agent Evaluation

Arize

Ragas

Job description

Job Description We are seeking an experienced AI engineering leader to build and operate Vertex's Agent Intelligence layer: the memory, personas, skills, and flagship agent experiences that make every Vertex AI agent grounded, consistent, and effective. Vertex Pharmaceuticals is in a transformational period, and the AI team is at the center of our AI-first strategy, delivering solutions that empower executives, researchers, and business users to make faster, more confident decisions. As part of the Vertex Data team, you will lead the Agent Intelligence function within Knowledge & Grounding. You will own the four primitives that all Vertex agents are built from: agent memory (personal and organizational), personas as code, skills (atomic tools and higher-order compositions), and the flagship agents that put those primitives to work on Vertex's hardest use cases. As the Director of Agent Intelligence, you will build the reusable building blocks of agent intelligence at Vertex. Your work will multiply the velocity and quality of agent development across Vertex, ensuring every agent benefits from a common foundation of grounded, governed, and reusable intelligence.

Key Duties and Responsibilities:

• Agent Memory. Design and operate Vertex's agent memory layer, spanning personal memory (per-user, per-session continuity) and organizational memory (shared institutional knowledge agents accumulate and reuse), including retention, retrieval, conflict resolution, and classification policies.
• Personas as Code. Define and steward the persona system that gives Vertex agents their voice, remit, and boundaries, including versioning, review, composition, and deployment workflows.
• Skills Catalog & Compositions. Curate the catalog of atomic tools agents can call (retrieval, analytics, action) and the higher-order skill compositions that combine them into persona-specific workflows, with clear contracts, registry, and quality standards.
• Flagship Agent Development. Design, build, and deploy custom AI agents for Vertex's highest-value enterprise use cases using Snowflake Cortex AI, Databricks AI, and agent orchestration frameworks, using these builds to harden the underlying primitives.
• Enterprise Agent Standards. Define and maintain the enterprise standards for agent orchestration, prompt libraries, persona definitions, tool-use patterns, and response quality that all teams must follow, regardless of builder.
• Experience Consistency & UX Standards. Define the quality bar for conversational UX across the enterprise (tone/persona, citation patterns, error handling, escalation paths, transparency) and drive consistency across agents.
• Prompt & Skill Library Stewardship. Curate and govern reusable prompt and skill assets (system prompts, persona templates, tool instructions, conversation patterns) with documentation and contribution workflows.

Knowledge and Skills:

• AI Agent Expertise. Hands-on experience building production AI agents using frameworks like LangChain, LangGraph, or similar orchestration tools.
• Cloud AI Platforms. Strong experience with Snowflake (Cortex AI, Cortex Analyst, Cortex Search) and/or Databricks (Agent Bricks, AI Functions, Mosaic AI) in enterprise environments.
• Full-Stack AI Engineering. Ability to work across the full AI stack, including data preparation, prompt engineering, agent orchestration, evaluation/testing, deployment, and monitoring.
• Memory & State Design. Direct experience designing how agents remember, including session state, long-horizon memory, retrieval over conversational history, and the data model behind it.
• Production Operations. Track record of operating AI systems in production with high availability, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
• Leadership & Communication. Proven ability to lead technical teams, communicate with executive stakeholders, and translate business needs into AI solutions.
• Pharma or Life Sciences Context. Experience in pharmaceutical, biotech, or life sciences data environments. Familiarity with clinical, regulatory, and commercial data domains is a plus.
• Platform Primitive Design. Experience designing reusable agent abstractions such as persona frameworks, skill registries, or tool catalogs.
• Agent Evaluation Tooling. Familiarity with evaluation tooling such as Braintrust, LangSmith, Mosaic AI Agent Evaluation, Arize, or Ragas.
• Model Customization. Experience with model fine-tuning, distillation, or post-training for domain adaptation.

Education and Experience: 10+ years of experience in data engineering, AI/ML, or advanced analytics, with 3+ years specifically focused on NLP systems, AI agent development, or conversational AI. At Vertex, we embrace continuous learning and encourage employees to stay informed on advances in AI, technology, automation, and industry trends. We seek talent who bring an external perspective, demonstrate curiosity and sound judgment, and thoughtfully adopt new capabilities that improve decision-making, drive innovation, increase efficiency, and help deliver better outcomes for patients.

Pay Range: $216,400 - $324,600 Disclosure Statement: The range provided is based on what we believe is a reasonable estimate for the base salary pay range for this job at the time of posting. This role is eligible for an annual bonus and annual equity awards. Some roles may also be eligible for overtime pay, in accordance with federal and state requirements. Actual base salary pay will be based on a number of factors, including skills, competencies, experience, and other job-related factors permitted by law. At Vertex, our Total Rewards offerings also include inclusive market-leading benefits to meet our employees wherever they are in their career, financial, family and wellbeing journey while providing flexibility and resources to support their growth and aspirations. From medical, dental and vision benefits to generous paid time off (including a week-long company shutdown in the Summer and the Winter), educational assistance programs including student loan repayment, a generous commuting subsidy, matching charitable donations, 401(k) and so much more.

Flex Designation: Hybrid-Eligible Or On-Site Eligible Flex Eligibility Status: In this Hybrid-Eligible role, you can choose to be designated as: 1. Hybrid: work remotely up to two days per week; or select 2. On-Site: work five days per week on-site with ad hoc flexibility. Note: The Flex status for this position is subject to Vertex’s Policy on Flex @ Vertex Program and may be changed at any time. #LI-Hybrid

Company Information

Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation. Vertex is committed to equal employment opportunity and non-discrimination for all employees and qualified applicants without regard to a person's race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, age, religion, national origin, ancestry, ethnicity, disability, veteran status, genetic information, sexual orientation, marital status, or any characteristic protected under applicable law. Vertex is an E-Verify Employer in the United States. Vertex will make reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with known disabilities, in accordance with applicable law. Any applicant requiring an accommodation in connection with the hiring process and/or to perform the essential functions of the position for which the applicant has applied should make a request to the recruiter or hiring manager, or contact Talent Acquisition at [e-mail] Help Us Achieve Our Mission Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation to create transformative medicines for people with serious diseases and conditions. The company has approved therapies for cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia, acute pain and acromegaly, and it continues to advance clinical and research programs in these areas. Vertex also has a robust clinical pipeline of investigational therapies across a range of modalities in other serious diseases where it has deep insight into causal human biology, including IgA nephropathy, neuropathic pain, APOL1-mediated kidney disease, primary membranous nephropathy, congenital adrenal hyperplasia, ACTH-dependent Cushing's syndrome, autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease, type 1 diabetes, generalized myasthenia gravis, and myotonic dystrophy type 1. Vertex was founded in 1989 and has its global headquarters in Boston, with international headquarters in London. Additionally, the company has research and development sites and commercial offices in North America, Europe, Australia, Latin America and the Middle East. Vertex is consistently recognized as one of the industry's top places to work, including 16 consecutive years on Science magazine's Top Employers list and one of Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For. For company updates and to learn more about Vertex's history of innovation, visit www.vrtx.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X We believe our culture is one of Vertex’s greatest strengths and a key enabler of our ability to deliver transformative medicines for patients who need them. Rooted in innovation, purpose and collaboration, our culture empowers people to take smart risks, challenge conventional thinking and do their best work. The diversity of our people is central to that culture. By bringing together individuals with different backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, we foster an environment where new ideas thrive, better decisions are made and breakthrough innovation is possible. We are committed to creating a workplace where everyone feels valued, included and connected to our shared mission, because we know that our unique culture and the collective strength of our people are what set Vertex apart.