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Associate Director Engineering (Hybird)

MSD


Job Location:

Rahway, NJ - USA

Yearly Salary: USD 142400 - 224100
Posted: 17 September 2026 (12 hours ago)
Application Deadline: 15 December 2026
Vacancies: 1 Vacancy

Job Summary

Job Description

Associate Director Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence (m/f/d)

Digital is the multiplier that will allow Development Sciences and Clinical Supply (DSCS) to deliver better experiments faster efficient filing and launch more robust supply chains and higher-confidence decisions across the portfolio. The DSCS Digital Technologies (DDT) organization is tasked with the mission to pioneer and deploy innovative digital technologies that drive the acquisition automation and utilization of data to enhance insights efficiency and quality of DSCS processes and methods.

The Associate Director Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence is a senior technical leader within the Agentic Intelligence team responsible for advancing the organizations shift from traditional business intelligence and manual reporting toward governed AI-ready data foundations and production-grade intelligent agents. The role pairs deep technical judgment with business acumen: identifying where agentic AI and decision intelligence create the greatest value shaping the solutions that deliver it and ensuring those capabilities are trusted adopted and sustained across DSCS.

This is a role for an experienced leader who operates with a high degree of independence owning definable programs end to end setting technical direction prioritizing based on business value and risk coaching talent and contributing directly or indirectly to the strategy of the Agentic Intelligence group. The Associate Director remains credible and current across the modern data and AI stack including Python SQL Databricks Dataverse Power BI GitHub Copilot Studio Gemini/Vertex AI or comparable enterprise AI platforms and Microsoft Power Platform and applies that depth to solution architecture design review and evaluation as much as to hands-on delivery.

The Associate Director Digital Operations Agentic Intelligence will:

  • Shape and advance the agentic intelligence agenda for DSCS Digital Operations identifying where agents data products and automation create the greatest business value and translating that into a prioritized sequenced roadmap.
  • Own definable projects and programs across their full lifecycle including design build evaluation deployment adoption and sustainment for governed data products reporting solutions automations and intelligent agents.
  • Exercise independent technical and business judgment on what to build what to standardize what to retire and what to decline balancing value risk effort and long-term maintainability.
  • Translate complex business challenges into technical roadmaps solution designs agent architectures evaluation frameworks and measurable outcomes anticipating stakeholder needs.
  • Establish and champion disciplined engineering and governance standards including version control documentation testing reusable patterns and release-readiness controls so solutions scale beyond their original use case.
  • Lead teams and projects act as a resource across multiple areas and identify train and coach talent to raise the capability of individuals and the group.
  • Partner with business leaders to drive adoption and demonstrate value realization so success is measured by decisions improved and outcomes delivered not solutions shipped.

Key Responsibilities:

  • Agentic AI Strategy & Delivery: Direct the design delivery and lifecycle governance of intelligent agents and AI-enabled workflows establishing reusable patterns and appropriate human oversight.
  • AI-Ready Data Foundations: Set direction for the data pipelines semantic layers and reusable data products that make DSCS data trusted discoverable and fit for AI-enabled use.
  • Business Intelligence Applications & Automation: Oversee delivery of dashboards applications and workflow automations that allow users to act on insights within their day-to-day processes.
  • Solution Architecture & Design Review: Define reference architectures and integration patterns for agentic and data solutions and lead design reviews that ensure choices are sound scalable and consistent across the team.
  • Decision Intelligence & Value Realization: Collaborate with the Decision Intelligence and Change Management team to align agentic and data solutions to established decision frameworks KPIs and adoption measures and supply the delivery and usage evidence needed to demonstrate business value.
  • Evaluation Quality & Responsible Deployment: Establish evaluation and testing standards for agents data and reporting solutions so they remain accurate monitored secure and responsibly deployed.
  • Engineering Standards CI/CD & Release Management: Establish source control code review automated testing and CI/CD practices and define the gated promotion path from development through test to production so releases are repeatable evidenced and approved.
  • Documentation & Knowledge Management: Set the standard for design documents runbooks decision logs and handover materials so solutions are transferable supportable and not dependent on any single individual.
  • Production Operations Monitoring & Support: Own the sustainment model for deployed solutions including performance monitoring issue triage user support and the retirement or rework of capabilities that no longer deliver value.
  • Security Compliance & Data Governance: Partner with data product owners enterprise IT cybersecurity privacy and quality functions to ensure solutions meet access control data classification auditability and GxP or regulatory expectations where applicable.
  • Team Leadership & Talent Development: Lead project teams mentor engineers and analysts across varied technical backgrounds and raise the technical bar through coaching code review and shared learning.
  • Innovation & Emerging Technology Evaluation: Stay current on emerging models platforms and agentic patterns run structured evaluations and recommend where new capabilities should be adopted piloted or deferred.

Required Experience and Skills:

  • Experience: 7 years of experience in data engineering software development business intelligence data science AI/ML or a related technical field including demonstrated experience leading projects and/or teams (Ph.D. with 4 years M.S. with 6 years or B.S. with 7 years of relevant experience).
  • Technical Depth & Credibility: Hands-on expertise with Python and SQL with the technical standing to architect review challenge and optimize solution designs data models code and queries across data transformation analysis automation and reporting use cases.
  • Data Engineering Foundation: Deep working knowledge of data pipelines data modeling data quality semantic layers metadata lineage and structured data products with experience in Databricks Dataverse cloud data platforms or comparable enterprise data environments.
  • Agentic AI & LLM Solutions: Demonstrated experience building and orchestrating Generative AI Large Language Model and agentic workflow solutions using Copilot Studio Gemini/Vertex AI Microsoft Power Platform retrieval-augmented generation workflow orchestration and responsible AI practices including agent evaluation and monitoring.
  • Engineering Practices: Strong command of GitHub or comparable source-control systems including repositories branching pull requests code review version control and CI/CD with hands-on experience using AI coding assistants and coding agents (e.g. GitHub Copilot Claude Code Cursor) to accelerate delivery including the judgment to review test and validate AI-generated code.
  • Business Value & Decision Judgment: Demonstrated ability to prioritize and sequence work based on business value risk and feasibility; define KPIs adoption metrics and value realization measures; and make defensible decisions about what to advance standardize or retire in partnership with business stakeholders.
  • Testing Evaluation & Governance Mindset: Ability to establish evaluation frameworks define test strategies identify failure modes validate data and answer quality and apply principles for secure and responsible AI deployment including access control privacy auditability human oversight monitoring and escalation.
  • Independent Leadership & Talent Development: Proven ability to lead projects and teams of moderate complexity with limited direction set technical direction identify and coach talent and contribute directly or indirectly to strategy-setting for a technical group.
  • Communication Stakeholder Management & Adoption: Excellent written and verbal communication with the ability to translate complex technical concepts for audiences manage senior stakeholders facilitate working sessions drive organizational adoption and write concise technical documentation.
  • Collaboration & Regulated Environment Awareness: Collaborative leadership mindset attention to detail and familiarity with pharmaceutical biotech GxP or other regulated environments.

Education:

  • Bachelors degree in Computer Science Data Science Engineering Information Technology or a related field required; advanced degree (M.S. or Ph.D.) preferred or equivalent experience.

This role can be based at any of our locations at West Point PA Rahway NJ or Schachen Switzerland.

# PRD

# eligibleforERP

Required Skills:

Data Compliance Data-Driven Decision Making Data Management Platforms Data Structures Design for Maintainability Drug Product Development Estimation and Planning GitHub Implementation Methodologies Manufacturing Quality Control Prioritization Process Control Automation Production System Python (Programming Language) SQL Databases

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

US and Puerto Rico Residents Only:

Our company is committed to inclusion ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race color age religion sex sexual orientation gender identity national origin protected veteran status disability status or other applicable legally protected a federal contractor we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities. For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws visit:

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EEOC GINA Supplement

We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together talented and committed people with diverse experiences perspectives skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas broad experiences backgrounds and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one anothers thinking and approach problems collectively.

Learn more about your rights including under California Colorado and other US State Acts

The salary range for this role is

$142400.00 - $224100.00

This is the lowest to highest salary we in good faith believe we would pay for this role at the time of this posting. An employees position within the salary range will be based on several factors including but not limited to relevant education qualifications certifications experience skills geographic location government requirements and business or organizational needs.

The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical dental vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family) retirement benefits including 401(k) paid holidays vacation and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at can apply for this role through (or via the Workday Jobs Hub if you are a current employee). The application deadline for this position is stated on this posting.

San Francisco Residents Only:We will consider qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records for employment in compliance with the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance

Los Angeles Residents Only:We will consider for employment all qualified applicants including those with criminal histories in a manner consistent with the requirements of applicable state and local laws including the City of Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring Ordinance

Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co. Inc. Rahway NJ USA also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC Rahway NJ USA does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place introductions are position specific. Please no phone calls or emails.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

Domestic

VISA Sponsorship:

Yes

Travel Requirements:

10%

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Not Indicated

Valid Driving License:

No

Hazardous Material(s):

n/a

Job Posting End Date:

09/22/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFOREthe listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.


Required Experience:

Director


About Company

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Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, USA is known as “Merck” in the United States, Canada & Puerto Rico. We are known as “MSD” in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Latin America & Asia Pacific. We are a global biopharmaceutical leader with a diverse portfolio of prescription medicine ... View more

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