Director of AI Delivery Management

Merck & Co.; Rahway (NJ); On-site; USD 190,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

Merck & Co. seeks a Director of AI Delivery Management to lead end-to-end AI project delivery and establish build teams across global sites.

The role reports to the Executive Director of AI Delivery and requires extensive experience in SDLC, agile practices, portfolio governance, and customer engagement. The ideal candidate will drive AI value, ensure ethical and safe AI adoption, and align product strategy with business outcomes across multiple geographies, managing both employees and

Qualifications

• 15+ years progressive leadership in software development with a path to senior leadership.
• 10+ years leading managers across multiple geographies.
• 5+ years delivering enterprise AI or intelligent automation with measurable business impact.

Responsibilities

• Lead end-to-end delivery of AI implementation projects and programs.
• Build and manage distributed delivery teams and engagement governance.
• Provide executive counsel and represent AI in cross IT planning and execution.
• Drive adoption of ethical, safe, value-driven AI practices.
• Ensure product management alignment and go-to-market readiness.

Skills

Executive leadership

Stakeholder management

AI strategy

Portfolio governance

Agile methodologies

Facilitation

People leadership

Financial valuation

ROI analysis

Communication

Problem solving

Change management

Cross-geography management

Education

Bachelor's degree

MBA or MS in AI/ML/CS

Job description

Job Description

The Director of AI Delivery Management is a member of the APEX engagement management and execution team reporting directly to the Executive Director of AI Delivery. This leader will plan, organize, and execute the end-to-end delivery of AI implementation projects and programs.

This Director will be accountable to establish build teams for each assigned engagement and to ensure the successful delivery. The Director must have experience across the SDLC, AI technology domain, financial management, people management, and demonstratable record of delivery large-scale techno-functional engineering deliveries. The resource must also have a strong and demonstratable background in agile methodologies, engagement lifecycle management, portfolio governance, customer engagement satisfaction, opportunity identification, and engagement learnings harvesting, business case establishment and build.

Key Responsibilities

Hands-on Delivery Execution Management

• Serve as the engagement execution lead for AI implementation projects, programs, initiatives, and strategic pursuits.
• Provide executive counsel and represent the AI organization in cross IT divisional planning, design, and execution, and operations sessions.
• Drive adoption of leading practices for ethical, safe, and value-driven AI across product development, portfolio management, and customer engagements.

People Leadership & Organization Development

• Lead and mentor day-to-day AI team members (developers, analysts, other) who execute day-to-day activities on delivery engagements.
• Oversee multiple teams of full-time employees and contracts, geographically dispersed across our tech centers.
• Foster a culture of servant leadership, psychological safety, inclusion, and continuous learning across remote and geographically distributed teams.
• Participate in the talent strategy: recruiting, developing, and retaining team members and high-potential practitioners; manage both employees and contractors as needed.

Product Management Oversight

• Ensure project and product management for assigned deliver clear product strategy, roadmaps, market/enterprise fit, and lifecycle management outcomes.
• Champion agentic-led thinking across the organization and provide agentic management as a service to other divisions, ensuring product practices are consistent, measurable, and outcome-focused.
• Work with product leaders to align product metrics to business value and ensure robust requirements, user-experience design, and go-to-market readiness.

Portfolio Management & Governance

• Assist in the demand management function to provide triage, prioritization, valuation, transparency, and strategic alignment across the entire AI portfolio of work.
• Leverage prioritization frameworks and investment decision criteria that balance risk, return, strategic alignment, and capacity.
• Ensure transparent project and program reporting, clear intake processes, and effective stage-gate governance that facilitate timely executive decisions.

Engagement & Client Partnership

• Oversee the engagement team, ensuring the team acts as the "face" of AI by providing first-line consulting, awareness, and relationship management.
• Drive high-quality stakeholder interactions, ensure client delight, and be accountable for the volume and quality of inbound AI opportunity.
• Promote consistent AI messaging, engagement methods, and workshop facilitation standards across the function.
• Apply AI frameworks to identify automation, optimization, and augmentation opportunities.
• Develop clear documentation and design blueprints that connect business needs to technical execution.
• Ensure alignment between strategic goals, business processes, and AI delivery roadmaps.

Delivery & Outcomes Orientation

• Be accountable for aligning engagement strategic priorities to delivery capacity and for the aggregate outcomes delivered by the AI Delivery-led teams.
• Monitor business impact, delivery success/health, and outcome achievement -- ensure AI initiatives translate into measurable improvements to efficiency, growth, or patient outcomes.

Education

• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree preferred (MBA, MS in AI/ML, Computer Science, or related field).

Required Experience and Skills

• Exceptional senior leader relationship building and interpersonal skills; able to influence IT Senior Leadership, and Enterprise Leadership, as needed.
• Executive presence, able to translate strategy into tactical execution.
• Demonstrated thought leadership in AI strategy, product management, portfolio governance, and enterprise transformation.
• Strong facilitation skills: able to design and lead workshops, ideation sessions, and executive briefings that catalyze AI-led change.
• Effective people leader who practices servant leadership, develops managers, and fosters high-performing dispersed teams.
• Expert critical thinking and problem solving; able to frame complex technical and business trade-offs simply and persuasively.
• Proficient in financial valuation, ROI analysis, and risk assessment for technology investments.
• Excellent communicator, capable of translating complex AI concepts into layperson terms and producing clear written artifacts.
• Skilled in decision frameworks and governance design for prioritization across competing opportunities.
• Experience in cross-geography management.
• Minimum 15 years of progressive leadership experience in the software development field in roles such as engineering manager, solution architect, developer lead, test engineer, software developer, or related functions, with a proven trajectory to senior leadership.
• At least 10+ years leading managers or leaders (people leaders of leaders) across multiple functional teams in multiple geographies.
• Demonstrated track record (5+ years recent) of delivering enterprise AI or intelligent automation solutions that produced measurable business impact.
• Experience operating at scale in a large enterprise environment with exposure to product/software lifecycle management and stakeholder engagement.
• Strong familiarity with agile, product, and portfolio management practices and tools.

Success Measures

• Improved throughput of intake to delivery for AI engagements.
• Customer CSAT measures.
• High satisfaction and trust scores from divisional partners (stakeholder NPS or equivalent).
• Regular pipeline of prioritized, well-scoped AI opportunities transitioning from Innovation Studios to Product and Delivery.

Location