Principal AI Engineer II

ABBVIE; North Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 142,000 - 269,000; Full time

Job summary

AbbVie is seeking a Principal AI Engineer II to define and advance AI strategy, architecture, and engineering practices across the organization. You will lead production-grade AI solutions, architect scalable platforms, and ensure secure, compliant deployments integrated with AWS and enterprise environments.

The role demands experience in regulated life sciences, strong communication skills with senior leaders, and a track record of mentoring engineers and guiding cross-functional teams toward

Qualifications

• Production-scale AI/ML systems design, deployment, and operation experience.
• Experience with AWS services and enterprise data integration.
• Strong software engineering practices and secure design.
• Experience in regulated life sciences environments.

Responsibilities

• Define AI engineering strategy and roadmaps aligned with business objectives.
• Architect and build scalable AI platforms, services, and tools.
• Lead production-grade AI solutions from ideation to deployment and monitoring.
• Integrate AI platforms with AWS and enterprise data, security, and infra.
• Establish release management, observability, and incident response practices.
• Apply risk-based approaches to compliance, data integrity, privacy, cybersecurity and documentation.
• Partner with stakeholders to deliver fit-for-purpose solutions.
• Serve as trusted technical advisor and communicate across audiences.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and guide to production capabilities.
• Mentor engineers and represent AbbVie in technical communities.

Skills

AI engineering

Cloud engineering

Regulated environment experience

Mentoring/leadership

Cross-functional collaboration

Education

Bachelor’s degree

Master’s degree

PhD

Tools

AWS

CI/CD pipelines

Containerization (Docker/Kubernetes)

Job description

• Compensation: USD 141500 - USD 268500 - yearly

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us atwww.abbvie.com . Follow @abbvie onLinkedIn, Facebook ,Instagram ,X andYouTube.

Job Description

As a discipline expert and technology leader, the Principal AI Engineer II will define and advance the strategy, architecture, and engineering practices required to develop, deploy, and scale artificial intelligence solutions across AbbVie. This role will investigate, identify, and implement state-of-the‑art technology platforms that drive productivity and efficiency gains in own function and throughout multiple business areas. Technical leader acting at a group, department, and cross‑functional levels. Responsible for managing the Data, Solutions, Business, and/or technology environments and tying them to the Enterprise Architecture and other architectures designs.

Responsibilities:

• Define and advance AI engineering strategy, architecture, standards, and roadmaps aligned with AbbVie’s business and technology objectives.
• Architect and build secure, scalable, reusable AI platforms, services, developer tools, and components that support enterprise adoption.
• Lead production‑grade AI solutions from ideation and prototyping through development, testing, validation, deployment, monitoring, continuous improvement, and retirement.
• Integrate AI platforms with AWS services and enterprise data, software, security, identity, and infrastructure environments.
• Establish practices for evaluation, testing, versioning, release management, observability, performance monitoring, incident response, and operational support.
• Apply risk-based approaches to compliance, GxP, data integrity, privacy, cybersecurity, documentation, traceability, human oversight, and responsible AI.
• Partner with Quality, Regulatory, Legal, Privacy, Information Security, scientific, technical, and business stakeholders to deliver fit‑for‑purpose solutions.
• Serve as a trusted technical advisor, facilitate alignment, influence decisions without direct authority, and communicate complex tradeoffs and recommendations to technical and non‑technical audiences.
• Evaluate emerging technologies, lead innovation and proof‑of‑concept efforts, and guide promising solutions into sustainable production capabilities.
• Mentor engineers, advance engineering maturity, promote knowledge sharing, and represent AbbVie in relevant technical communities and partner engagements.

Qualifications

Required

• Bachelor’s degree with 9 years’ experience, Master’s degree with 8 years’ experience, or PhD with 4 years’ in Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Data Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline.
• Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, and operating production‑scale AI and machine learning systems.
• Strong experience in AI/platform engineering, including scalable platforms, reusable components, and production‑grade AI solutions.
• Demonstrated experience designing, building, deploying, and supporting solutions using AWS systems and services.
• Strong software and cloud engineering practices, including secure design, automated testing, CI/CD, containerization, monitoring, and operational support.
• Experience working in a regulated environment, preferably pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare, medical device, or life sciences.
• Experience supporting the full solution lifecycle, including feasibility, design, development, testing, validation, deployment, and ongoing operations.
• Strong understanding of risk management, validation, change control, data integrity, cybersecurity, privacy, documentation, and quality requirements.
• Demonstrated ability to manage complex stakeholders, influence technical and business decisions, and collaborate across organizational boundaries.
• Excellent communication skills with senior leaders, technical teams, scientific experts, business partners, and external collaborators.
• Demonstrated innovation and mentoring experience, including advancing engineering practices and delivering measurable impact.

Preferred

• Experience with enterprise AI governance, responsible AI, model validation, human oversight, and AI lifecycle management.
• Experience with MLOps and production engineering, including model evaluation, APIs, microservices, CI/CD, observability, and infrastructure as code.
• Open‑source contributions or technical thought leadership through publications, patents, or industry working groups.
• Experience leading cross‑functional product development from feasibility through validation and production implementation.
• Enterprise AI or platform experience, including AWS architecture, governance, security, and integration with enterprise environments.

Additional Information

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state orlocal law:

The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Companybelieves ingood faith it will pay for this role at the timeof this posting based on the job grade for this position.Individualcompensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, andwemayultimatelypaymore or less than the posted range. This range may bemodifiedin thefuture.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick),medical/dental/visioninsurance and 401(k) to eligibleemployees.

This job is eligible toparticipatein our long‑term incentiveprograms.

Note: No amount of payis considered to bewages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, anddeterminable.The amount and availability of any bonus,commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form ofcompensation and benefitsthat are allocable to a particular employeeremainsin the Company's sole andabsolutediscretion unless and until paid andmay bemodifiedat the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent withapplicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community. Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.