Senior Director, Engineering - Backend & Data Platforms

AbbVie; Irvine (CA); On-site; USD 182,000 - 346,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Benefits package

Long-term incentives

Job summary

AbbVie is seeking an Executive Director of Engineering in Irvine, CA to lead multiple engineering teams delivering scalable backend platforms, data services and data products that drive business value. You will partner with product, architecture, data, security and business stakeholders to define roadmaps and ensure reliable, secure solutions across the portfolio.

You will empower engineering managers, foster a high-performing organization, establish operating rhythms, and drive measurement of

Qualifications

• BS or MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; or equivalent practical experience.
• 10+ years of software engineering, backend and data domains incl. APIs and data pipelines.
• 4+ years of engineering leadership, managing managers and multiple teams.
• Experience scaling data APIs, microservices, event-driven systems, distributed architectures.
• Strong data engineering knowledge: warehousing, pipelines, integration, data products.
• Proficiency in SQL/NoSQL (PostgreSQL, Snowflake, DynamoDB) and cloud-native tooling.
• Experience with AWS, CI/CD, Docker, Kubernetes, serverless tech (Lambda, SQS, SNS).
• Strong communication and stakeholder management; driving delivery and quality.

Responsibilities

• Own delivery and outcomes across multiple engineering teams aligned to business priorities.
• Lead and develop engineering managers to grow their people and results.
• Build a high-performing organization with clear accountability and strong rhythms.
• Partner with product, architecture, data, security, and stakeholders to shape roadmaps.
• Oversee backend data services, APIs, pipelines, and data products for scalability and reliability.
• Drive technical decisions with architects and senior engineers to meet enterprise standards.
• Improve engineering processes across planning, estimation, release, and dependency management.
• Communicate portfolio health, plans, risks, milestones to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Promote modern software practices: testing, observability, incidents, and operational readiness.
• Ensure production reliability with monitoring, logging, alerts, and quick response.
• Maintain data governance, security, privacy, and regulatory compliance in systems.
• Plan staffing, succession, and resource allocation across teams and priorities.
• Coach leaders through change and scale the organization while maintaining engagement.
• Stay current with industry trends and adopt value-adding innovations.

Skills

Backend engineering

Data pipelines

Leadership

Cloud platforms

SQL/NoSQL

AWS

Kubernetes

Communication

Education

BS or MS in Computer Science or related field

Tools

PostgreSQL

Snowflake

DynamoDB

Kafka

Fivetran

dbt

Airflow

Docker

Kubernetes

Datadog

PagerDuty

NestJS

FastAPI

Job description

AbbVie is seeking an Executive Director of Engineering in Irvine, CA to lead multiple engineering teams delivering scalable backend platforms, data services and data products that drive business value. You will partner with product, architecture, data, security and business stakeholders to define roadmaps and ensure reliable, secure solutions across the portfolio.

You will empower engineering managers, foster a high-performing organization, establish operating rhythms, and drive measurement of