Senior Director Principal Software Engineer – Forward Deployed

We are seeking a senior Engineering Leader to lead high‑impact, AI‑enabled software systems across the Commercial Analytics domain. This role combines hands‑on technical leadership, architectural ownership, and executive partnership to deliver reliable, scalable solutions with speed and rigor.
 

This is a forward‑deployed, startup‑CTO–style role, embedded within the Commercial business unit. You will partner directly with business leaders to solve real commercial problems, rapidly prototype solutions, and validate patterns that can be scaled by Platform Engineering. You will drive domain‑level technical strategy, shape engineering culture, and bring clarity to ambiguous problem spaces.
 

The ideal candidate blends executive communication, deep technical judgment, commercial analytics expertise, and modern AI‑augmented engineering practices.
 

Role Responsibilities

Technical & Delivery Leadership

• Lead delivery of the most critical Data, Analytics, and AI initiatives across Commercial Analytics.

• Own technical strategy and architecture, ensuring solutions are scalable, reliable, and business‑aligned.

• Establish engineering standards for design, development, testing, and AI‑assisted delivery.

• Drive rapid prototyping and MVP development from concept to production.

AI‑Enabled Engineering

• Lead adoption of AI‑augmented development tools and workflows.

• Define governance, evaluation, and human‑in‑the‑loop verification standards for AI‑assisted work.

• Evaluate and integrate emerging AI/ML technologies into engineering practices.

People & Culture Leadership

• Lead and mentor a matrixed team of engineering leaders and senior engineers.

• Shape talent strategy, including hiring, succession planning, and senior‑level development.

• Build a culture of engineering excellence, collaboration, and continuous learning.

Business Partnership & Executive Influence

• Act as a trusted technical advisor to VP/SVP Commercial leaders.

• Translate technical trade‑offs into business impact and investment decisions.

• Influence commercial analytics strategy and long‑term technology roadmaps.

Reliability & Operational Excellence

• Define reliability standards (SLOs/SLIs) and champion operational excellence.

• Ensure strong observability, monitoring, and production readiness.

• Lead post‑incident learning and continuous reliability improvements.

Knowledge, Documentation & Process

• Establish clear documentation and spec‑driven development standards.

• Build scalable knowledge‑management practices across teams.

• Improve delivery flow through lean methods, process simplification, and systematic bottleneck removal.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Business Analytics, or related field; 12–15+ years of experience.

• Proven experience delivering analytics and technology solutions in partnership with Commercial leaders, ideally in life sciences.

• Deep knowledge of Life Sciences Commercial Analytics use cases (e.g., forecasting, market research, omnichannel, customer analytics, marketing mix modeling, Next Best Action).

• Experience leading end‑to‑end MVPs with engineering, data science, and vendor teams.

• Background scaling data, analytics, and ML platforms in large organizations.

• Strong executive presence and ability to operate as a strategic advisor.

Preferred Qualifications

• Master’s degree in Computer Engineering, Data Science, or Business.

• Hands‑on experience with platforms such as Databricks, Snowflake, AWS, or Azure.

• Experience influencing cross‑functional teams without direct authority.

• Prior experience at a top‑tier technology or management consulting firm.

Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collab