Manager, DS & AI Backend Engineer

ROLE SUMMARY
The AI Acceleration (AIA) function within the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) is the single, business-led engine that owns the design, delivery, and scale-up of priority AI capabilities across Commercial. AIA works in tight collaboration with various Pfizer functions to deploy and maintain production-grade AI solutions that simplify how we work and drive measurable value across all processes.
As a Manager, Backend Engineer, you will design, develop, and scale backend systems that power autonomous, tool‑using AI agents. This role focuses on building reliable, high‑performance services that enable multi‑step reasoning, planning, memory, retrieval, and tool integration across AI-driven workflows.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Build backend services supporting agentic and generative AI workflows
• Implement multi‑step reasoning, planning, and tool‑execution loops
• Develop state and memory systems for agent context and knowledge retention
• Design and optimize RAG pipelines and retrieval infrastructure
• Integrate LLMs with APIs, tools, databases, and external systems
• Implement guardrails, validation layers, retry logic, and failure‑handling mechanisms
• Develop monitoring for agent behavior, performance, cost, and decision paths
• Architect scalable, fault‑tolerant backend systems with observability and logging
• Build automated evaluation pipelines for agent reliability, accuracy, and safety
• Deploy and maintain services using Docker, CI/CD, and cloud environments
• Ensure compliance with security, RBAC, and data protection requirements

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in computer science, or a related field (or equivalent experience).
• 5+ years of experience in software engineering, data science, or related technical fields.

Backend Engineering

• Proficiency in Python
• Experience with FastAPI or Flask
• Knowledge of REST APIs, async processing, and distributed workers
• Experience with relational, NoSQL, and vector databases

Agentic AI & LLM Systems

• Experience building agent-based AI systems
• Familiarity with LangGraph, LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, AutoGen, or similar frameworks
• Understanding of tool-calling, structured outputs, and prompt reliability
• Experience with OpenAI/Azure OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral, or open-source LLMs

System Design & Operations

• Experience with scalable system design and fault‑tolerant architecture
• Hands-on experience with observability (logging, metrics, tracing)
• Proficiency with Docker, CI/CD pipelines, and cloud platforms

Security & Compliance

• Knowledge of API security, RBAC, and data handling best practices
• Experience working with PII and sensitive data

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with multi‑agent workflows
• Exposure to workflow orchestration tools (Airflow, Temporal, Dagster, Prefect)
• Familiarity with model serving frameworks (vLLM, Ray Serve, TGI, Modal)
• Understanding of AI safety, guardrails, and evaluation frameworks

Pfizer is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity legislation in each jurisdiction in which it operates.
Information & Business Tech