Senior Director, AI Systems and Platforms

Edwards Lifesciences Belgium; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 232,000 - 329,000; Full time

Job summary

Edwards Lifesciences is building an AI Center of Excellence in Irvine, CA, to apply AI across the structural heart journey and develop innovative digital solutions that support patient care. The role focuses on architecting secure, scalable AI services and guiding cross-functional teams.

The candidate will lead the AI platform, governance, and delivery, collaborating with IT, engineering, and clinical stakeholders to accelerate innovation while ensuring safety and compliance.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree plus 12 years of experience in software or AI architecture, including at least 5 years in a formal technical leadership or chief architect capacity
• Experience negotiating a formal shared-capacity or co-delivery model with an internal IT organization

Responsibilities

• Design reusable, secure, multi-tenant AI services that product and business teams can consume without rebuilding common capabilities
• Operate the AI platform as an internal product with defined customers, roadmap, service levels, adoption measures, and developer experience
• Chair the operating cadence of the AI Center of Excellence
• Own build, buy, or rent decisions for AI capabilities, with the authority to stop an internal build
• Own the reference architecture and enforce technical standards across all AI initiatives
• Own the AI gateway, model routing, and observability layer
• Build and lead delivery pods that include engineers from IT under a formal shared-capacity agreement
• Own production reliability for AI applications

Skills

Software architecture

AI architecture

Technical leadership

Cloud platforms

MLOps / LLMOps

Cross-functional leadership

API / microservices design

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Cloud platforms

API design

Microservices design

MLOps

LLMOps

Observability

Kubernetes

Job description

USA - California – Irvine

Full time

Req-50786

At Edwards Lifesciences, the Advanced Innovation & Technology (AI&T) teams harness imagination, courage, and resourcefulness to think beyond what’s currently possible, and create solutions for patients many years into the future.

As part of AI&T, we're building an AI Center of Excellence (COE) focused on applying the power of AI to help patients live longer, healthier lives. As we expand our focus across the structural heart disease journey, AI is creating new opportunities to better understand and improve patient care. Our teams are applying AI to support clinical decision-making, identify patients earlier, develop digital solutions that complement our therapies, and help employees work more efficiently so they can focus on work that matters most. We're building an AI COE that collaborates across our innovation-focused teams throughout our global organization, helping accelerate innovation and build AI capabilities that create lasting impact for patients, clinicians, and employees. Together, we're committed to applying AI responsibly and thoughtfully while keeping patients at the center of everything we do.

This is a rare opportunity to help define how AI is applied across the structural heart disease journey while shaping the next generation of therapies, digital solutions, and patient experiences. We’ll give you the tools and resources you need to create groundbreaking innovations that shape the future of structural heart technology.

How you will make an impact:

• Design reusable, secure, multi-tenant AI services that product and business teams can consume without rebuilding common capabilities

• Operate the AI platform as an internal product with defined customers, roadmap, service levels, adoption measures, and developer experience

• Chair the operating cadence of the AI Center of Excellence

• Own build, buy, or rent decisions for AI capabilities, with the authority to stop an internal build

• Own the reference architecture and enforce technical standards across all AI initiatives

• Own the AI gateway, model routing, and observability layer

• Build and lead delivery pods that include engineers from IT under a formal shared-capacity agreement

• Own and rationalize the AI platform estate, including vendor spend attribution

• Own production reliability for AI applications

What you'll need (Required):

• Bachelor's degree plus 12 years of experience in software or AI architecture, including at least 5 years in a formal technical leadership or chief architect capacity

• Experience negotiating a formal shared-capacity or co-delivery model with an internal IT organization

What else we look for (Preferred):

• AI reference architecture design, platform rationalization, and vendor spend management (FinOps)

• Hands‑on fluency with enterprise cloud AI platforms, API and microservices design, MLOps or LLMOps, observability, and secure production operations; experience with major cloud platforms is illustrative rather than mandatory

• Player‑coach technical leadership: setting direction and writing code or reviewing designs personally, not managing through layers

• Platform product management, internal developer‑platform design, service‑level management, and adoption measurement

• Experience consolidating a fragmented platform or vendor estate

• Experience chairing or running a cross‑functional technical governance body

• Demonstrated ability to manage one or more teams and provide coaching and feedback, including responsibility for all employee actions, hire/fire authority, and partnering with HR on all aspects of employee relations

• Ability to interact professionally with all organizational levels and proactively elevate issues to appropriate levels of management

• Ability to work and excel within a fast‑paced, dynamic, and constantly changing work environment

• Ability to ensure team alignment to strategic goals and initiatives through regular communication

• Ability to coach and mentor team members, including dotted‑line reports as necessary; align team members in roles that best leverage their strengths and support growth and skill diversification

• Adhere to all company rules and requirements, including pandemic protocols and Environmental Health & Safety rules; take adequate control measures to prevent injuries to themselves and others, protect the environment, and prevent pollution within their span of influence/control

Aligning our overall business objectives with performance, we offer competitive salaries, performance‑based incentives, and a wide variety of benefits programs to address the diverse individual needs of our employees and their families.

For California, the base pay range for this position is $232,000 to $329,000 (highly experienced).

The pay for the successful candidate will depend on various factors (e.g., qualifications, education, prior experience). Applications will be accepted while this position is posted on our Careers website.

Edwards is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer including protected Veterans and individuals with disabilities.

Edwards Lifesciences is the leading global structural heart innovation company, driven by a passion to improve patient lives. Through breakthrough technologies, world‑class evidence and partnerships with clinicians and healthcare stakeholders, our employees are inspired by our patient‑focused culture to deliver life‑changing innovations to those who need them most.