Director, RDU IT - AI

This is what you will do:  

As Director, RDU IT – AI, you will be a highly visible technology leader who partners across Alexion to identify opportunities, improve decision-making, and create measurable value through AI and advanced analytics. You will bring an innovative, collaborative, and business-focused approach to translating complex needs into scalable solutions. 
 

You will help shape the next generation of patient-centric data, analytics, and application platforms, using healthcare data and modern technologies to advance business and scientific innovation. 
 

You will lead multidisciplinary teams, build trusted relationships with business and technology stakeholders, and communicate technical solutions clearly to audiences at all levels. You will also oversee delivery partners and service providers to ensure quality, alignment, and value. 
 

Reporting to the Senior Director, RDU IT – Data & AI, you will lead the implementation and delivery of AI solutions while managing, mentoring, and contributing alongside engineering teams. You will guide the development, deployment, integration, and scaling of AI capabilities across business and scientific applications, with a strong focus on technical excellence, operational reliability, security, and responsible AI. 

You will be responsible for:  

• Lead the development, deployment, and continuous improvement of scalable AI models and systems that address priority business and scientific challenges 

• Manage, mentor, and develop regional engineering teams, fostering high performance and effective collaboration across geographies 

• Provide technical leadership across the full solution lifecycle, from discovery and architecture through implementation, delivery, and ongoing optimization 

• Oversee the architecture, automation, scalability, and operational reliability of AI infrastructure, models, services, and analytical platforms 

• Integrate AI capabilities into enterprise platforms, applications, agents, APIs, user interfaces, and workflows to enable seamless adoption and measurable value 

• Establish reusable assets, templates, frameworks, and delivery methods that accelerate high-quality AI solutions across the value chain 

• Partner with business leaders, data scientists, engineers, and subject matter experts to identify opportunities, structure problems, align priorities, and translate data-driven insights into action 

• Ensure responsible, secure, and compliant use of AI through effective production governance, monitoring, versioning, performance management, and alignment with evolving regulatory requirements 

You will need to have: 

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field 

• Proven experience delivering production AI, machine learning, data science, or software engineering solutions, including large language models, prompt engineering, fine-tuning, and AI-powered applications 

• Hands-on proficiency in Python and leading AI frameworks such as Hugging Face Transformers, LangChain, TensorFlow, or PyTorch, with working knowledge of SQL and analytical methods 

• Strong MLOps and software delivery experience, including automated deployment, monitoring, lifecycle management, CI/CD, version control, containerization, and scalable production operations 

• Solid knowledge of cloud-based AI and data architectures, especially AWS services, web services, data lakes, serverless technologies, Kubernetes, and elastic compute environments 

• Demonstrated leadership of geographically distributed technical teams, with the ability to coach talent, manage multiple priorities, and collaborate effectively across functions 

• Advanced analytical, modeling, and problem-solving capabilities, including selecting and evaluating appropriate methods, extracting insights from large datasets, and anticipating emerging business and technology trends 

• Exceptional written and verbal communication, stakeholder management, and executive presentation skills, with the ability to translate complex technical insights into concise, actionable business terms; biopharmaceutical industry experience is highly valued 

We would prefer for you to have: 

• Master’s degree in a technical or healthcare-related field 

• 10+ years of experience in machine learning, data science, or software engineering, with a strong record of delivering high-value AI solutions 

• Hands-on experience designing and deploying enterprise LLM systems, including content generation, summarization, document parsing, and conversational interfaces, with expertise in managing context limitations, hallucination risk, and performance tuning 

• Experience applying AI in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, or healthcare environments, with knowledge of responsible AI practices such as explainability, prompt safety, and ethical risk mitigation 

• Demonstrated contribution to AI communities, open-source initiatives, publications, hackathons, blogs, or other forms of thought leadership