Senior AI Activation Lead - Generative AI & LLMs

Merck; New Jersey; On-site; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Merck is seeking an Associate Director, AI Activation & Data Science, a highly technical AI leader to design and deliver enterprise AI programs across the Digital Human Health team. You will build LLM-driven solutions, enable MLOps/LLMOps, and partner with brand, ME, and analytics to drive measurable business value while upholding governance and responsible AI practices.

You will lead end-to-end AI initiatives, establish scalable architectures, and mentor teams while working with external

Qualifications

• 5+ years of AI/ML engineering, data science, or related field, including 2+ years building generative AI or LLM solutions.
• Prior pharmaceutical or healthcare industry experience is required.
• Deep expertise in LLMs and generative AI, including RAG, embeddings, and agent frameworks.

Responsibilities

• Own the technical design and end-to-end delivery of DHH-wide AI initiatives from ideation through deployment.
• Design and build generative AI and agentic solutions, including LLM apps and multi-agent workflows.
• Define scalable AI architectures and guardrails for democratized use across ME teams.
• Lead MLOps/LLMOps practices with CI/CD, monitoring, and lifecycle management.
• Mentor team members and establish best practices for prompt engineering and AI development.

Skills

Advanced Python

SQL

MLOps/LLMOps

AI/ML engineering

Cloud services

Prompt engineering

LLMs/generative AI

Cross-functional leadership

Education

Master’s degree or PhD in Computer Science/Data Science/Engineering/Mathematics/Statistics

Tools

LangChain

LangGraph

Semantic Kernel

Vertex AI

Bedrock

Job description

Merck is seeking an Associate Director, AI Activation & Data Science, a highly technical AI leader to design and deliver enterprise AI programs across the Digital Human Health team. You will build LLM-driven solutions, enable MLOps/LLMOps, and partner with brand, ME, and analytics to drive measurable business value while upholding governance and responsible AI practices.

You will lead end-to-end AI initiatives, establish scalable architectures, and mentor teams while working with external