Senior Director, Engineering

Biopharma Careers; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 215,000 - 358,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

401(k) with Pfizer matching

Competitive health benefits

Job summary

Pfizer in the United States seeks a Senior Director of Engineering for Medical Affairs AI. Hybrid role; NYHQ or PA-Collegeville. You will lead a team building enterprise AI systems, ensure production reliability, and partner with Solution Architecture and Product Management to translate architecture into shipped software.

Travel to offices as needed and participation in off-hours for incidents; base salary 214,900–358,100 USD with bonus targets and long-term incentives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field and 12+ years of progressive software/data engineering experience.
• Demonstrated experience building and shipping production AI/ML or LLM-based systems at enterprise scale.
• Hands-on experience with modern cloud architecture (AWS or Azure), API-first design, and CI/CD/DevOps practice.
• Experience with data integration across enterprise systems and leading engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Own end-to-end engineering delivery for Medical AI Acceleration portfolio, translating architecture and product requirements into production-grade software.
• Set engineering standards and ensure quality across the build team with maintainability and reuse.
• Establish and improve CI/CD pipelines, environment strategy, and release management for AI/ML software.
• Direct sprint and iteration execution in partnership with Scrum Master.

Skills

People leadership

Enterprise AI systems

Cloud architecture

CI/CD/DevOps

LLMOps/MLOps

Data integration

Agile/Scrum

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science/Engineering

12+ years progressive software/data engineering

Engineering leadership/management experience

Master's degree (preferred)

Tools

Veeva CRM

Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud

GxP/compliance tooling

CI/CD tooling

Job description

ROLE SUMMARY

This role owns the engineering build accountability for the Medical Affairs Digital and AI portfolio. This role leads the team that turns solution architecture and product requirements into shipped, production-grade AI systems at enterprise scale. It carries direct people‑leadership accountability for a build team of three Build Engineers and a Data Integration Engineer, and hands‑on technical accountability for engineering standards, delivery velocity, and production reliability across Medical Affairs globally.

This is a peer role to the Senior Director, Solution Architecture and the Senior Director, Product Management, and works closely together with these peers to deliver enterprise scale solutions -- product management defines what gets built and why, architecture defines how a solution is built and engineering builds and ships it. This role drives engineering standards, build quality, and delivery discipline that ensures reliability and speed for every AI system deployed to production.

The Senior Director operates with significant technical and managerial autonomy, translating architecture blueprints and product roadmaps into committed delivery plans, and is accountable for realistic delivery commitments, production reliability, and engineering risk, including the technical debt, security, and compliance consequences of build decisions.

The Senior Director, Engineering leads and builds the engineering organization responsible for constructing, integrating, and shipping Medical Affairs' AI‑powered products and platforms. This is a hands‑on technical leadership role owning software engineering practice, data integration execution, CI/CD and LLMOps/MLOps discipline, and production reliability for the portfolio of Medical Affairs Tier 1 Agentic AI and LLM‑based systems. Reporting into the lead of Medical AI Acceleration and Delivery and partnering with peer Senior Directors of Solution Architecture and Product Management, this leader turns architecture and product intent into working, tested, deployed software, while building, coaching, and retaining an engineering team capable of operating at enterprise AI scale.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Engineering Strategy & Delivery Leadership
  • Own end-to-end engineering delivery for the Medical AI Acceleration portfolio, translating solution architecture and product requirements into working, production‑grade software.
  • Set engineering standards, coding practices, and technical quality bars across the build team, ensuring consistency, maintainability, and reuse across products.
  • Establish and continuously improve CI/CD pipelines, environment strategy, and release management practice across AI/ML and traditional software components.
  • Own sprint and iteration execution in partnership with the Scrum Master, ensuring committed work is delivered on time and to standard.
• AI/ML Build & Data Integration
  • Direct the build of Agentic AI systems, LLM integrations, and RAG pipelines, translating architectural design into deployed, functioning services.
  • Oversee data integration engineering across core enterprise systems (e.g., Veeva CRM, PromoMats, Salesforce Life Sciences/Marketing Cloud), ensuring reliable, well‑governed data pipelines feed AI and analytics platforms.
  • Implement and maintain LLMOps/MLOps practice, model deployment pipelines, monitoring, retraining triggers, and performance measurement, in partnership with Solution Architecture.
  • Ensure engineering‑level enforcement of responsible AI safeguards (data access controls, prompt injection defenses, model output monitoring) defined by the architecture function.
• Technical Quality, Reliability & Risk Management
  • Own production reliability, uptime, and incident response for the Medical AI Acceleration portfolio's shipped systems.
  • Partner with Security, Compliance, and Solution Architecture to ensure engineering practice meets regulatory requirements (GxP, HIPAA, GDPR) and passes required technical gates before release.
  • Identify and remediate technical debt, balancing delivery speed against long‑term system health.
• Cross‑Functional Partnership
  • Partner as a peer with the Senior Director, Solution Architecture to review and co‑author architecture blueprints prior to finalization, to ensure architecture blueprints are buildable, and with the Senior Director, Product Management to ensure delivery sequencing reflects business priority.
  • Partner as a peer with the Senior Director, Solution Architecture to define and review RFIs, RFPs and perform vendor selection.
  • Represent engineering capacity, velocity, and risk in portfolio governance forums, providing realistic delivery commitments to senior stakeholders.
  • Collaborate with the AI Experience and Workflow Design lead to ensure interface and workflow designs are engineered faithfully to specification.
  • Serve as the Medical Affairs Engineering interface to the Digital Technology platform teams. Educate Medical Affairs colleagues in the Federated Model on the use of the centrally deployed platforms.
• People Leadership & Talent Development
  • Directly manage, coach, and develop three Build Engineers and one Data Integration Engineer, setting objectives, conducting performance management, and building career growth paths.
  • Build a high‑performing, AI‑native engineering culture, hiring, onboarding, and upskilling engineers in modern AI/ML build practice.
  • Establish engineering community‑of‑practice norms (code review, pairing, documentation) that scale beyond the immediate team.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS

• Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; 12+ years of progressive software/data engineering experience, including 4-5+ years in an engineering leadership or management role.
• Demonstrated experience building and shipping production AI/ML or LLM‑based systems at enterprise scale.
• Hands‑on experience with modern cloud architecture (AWS or Azure), API‑first design, and CI/CD/DevOps practice.
• Hands‑on experience with LLMOps/MLOps tooling, vector databases, RAG pipeline engineering, and agent orchestration frameworks.
• Experience with data integration engineering and pipeline development across enterprise systems.
• Proven people‑management experience, including hiring, coaching, and performance management of engineering talent.
• Experience partnering with Solution Architects and Product Managers/Owners in a matrixed delivery model.
• Experience with Agile/Scrum delivery frameworks.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Master's degree in a technical field.
• Experience in pharmaceutical, life sciences, or another regulated industry, with familiarity with GxP, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance requirements for engineered systems.
• Familiarity with Veeva CRM, Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud, or Salesforce Marketing Cloud integration patterns.
• Relevant certifications (AWS/Azure Solutions Architect or Developer, Certified Scrum Master or equivalent for engineering leaders).

Non‑Standard Work Schedule, Travel, or Environment Requirements

Must be able to travel to Pfizer offices, vendor offices, and other team meeting locations when required.

Project work can sometimes be demanding and require work during off‑hours to coordinate with global stakeholders or respond to production incidents.

Other Job Details

Last Date to Apply for Job: September 23, 2026

Locations: NYHQ or PA-Collegeville

NOT Eligible for Relocation Package

Position is hybrid and will require to work 2 to 3 days per week site

Compensation

The annual base salary for this position ranges from $214,900.00 to $358,100.00. In addition, this position is eligible for participation in Pfizer’s Global Performance Plan with a bonus target of 22.5% of the base salary and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program.

Benefits

• We offer comprehensive and generous benefits and programs to help our colleagues lead healthy lives and to support each of life’s moments.
• Benefits offered include a 401(k) plan with Pfizer Matching Contributions and an additional Pfizer Retirement Savings Contribution, paid vacation, holiday and personal days, paid caregiver/parental and medical leave, and health benefits to include medical, prescription drug, dental and vision coverage.

Additional Information

Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility.

Candidates must be authorized to be employed in the U.S. by any employer.

U.S. work visa sponsorship (such as TN, O‑1, H‑1B, etc.) is not available for this role now or in the future.

Pfizer reports payments and other transfers of value to health care providers as required by federal and state transparency laws and implementing regulations. These laws and regulations require Pfizer to provide government agencies with information such as a health care provider’s name, address and the type of payments or other value received, generally for public disclosure. Subject to further legal review and statutory or regulatory clarification, which Pfizer intends to pursue, reimbursement of recruiting expenses for licensed physicians may constitute a reportable transfer of value under the federal transparency law commonly known as the Sunshine Act. Therefore, if you are a licensed physician who incurs recruiting expenses as a result of interviewing with Pfizer that we pay or reimburse, your name, address and the amount of payments made currently will be reported to the government. If you have questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact your Talent Acquisition representative.

EEO & Employment Eligibility

Pfizer is committed to equal opportunity in the terms and conditions of employment for all employees and job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or gender expression, national origin, disability or veteran status. Pfizer also complies with all applicable national, state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act and IRCA. Pfizer is an E‑Verify employer. This position requires permanent work authorization in the United States.

Accessibility

Pfizer endeavors to make https://www.pfizer.com/careers accessible to all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process and/or interviewing, please email [e-mail]. This is to be used solely for accommodation requests with respect to the accessibility of our website, online application process and/or interviewing. Requests for any other reason will not be returned.

AI Recruitment Guidelines

To learn more about acceptable and prohibited uses of AI during the recruitment process, please review our candidate AI‑use guidelines available on Pfizer Careers.