Associate Director, AI Engineering

Role Summary

Lead strategy, talent management, and operations delivery for data science and analytics. Identify new capabilities to drive analytics innovation and foster a culture of experimentation that enables data-driven insights for complex business problems. Influence cross-functional leaders to maximize the value of data and advanced analytics techniques like machine learning and artificial intelligence. Develop strategies aligned with future Clinical Development and R&D needs, and lead GenAI/Agentic AI enablement across data science tools and capabilities in clinical development, managing a team of data scientists delivering AI-driven data products.

Responsibilities

• Manages a team of associates and data scientists in DSA; may also manage line-level people managers
• Responsible for coaching, mentoring and performance management of direct reports, as well as talent development in alignment with DSS strategy and R&D business needs
• Identifies new capabilities and opportunities to drive analytics innovation and value creation. Forms cross-functional teams to implement new capabilities
• Influences the cross-functional stakeholders and Sr. Executives to identify opportunities to unleash the full-potential of data and analytics, including advanced ML techniques and Artificial Intelligence
• Represents clinical analytics at critical governance, quality and compliance, and regulatory meetings
• Translate R&D strategy into functional area plans. Works with cross-functional leaders to gain alignment on project prioritization and timelines
• Fosters innovation and entrepreneurial culture within the team that attracts and retains top talent; creates an environment of continuous learning
• Responsible for crafting functional area strategies while ensuring alignment with the cross-functional stakeholder groups
• Ensures adherence to federal regulations and applicable local regulations, Good Clinical Practices (GCPs), ICH Guidelines, AbbVie Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and to functional quality standards. Stays abreast of new and/or evolving local regulations, guidelines and policies related to clinical development

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master's degree in statistics, mathematics, analytics, bioinformatics, data science or equivalent field with 10+ years (BS), 8+ years (MS) or 6+ years (PhD) of related experience
• Must have 4+ years experience with people management and talent development
• Intermediate-level proficiency in R, SAS or other statistical packages. Intermediate-level knowledge of statistical and data mining techniques
• Intermediate proficiency with visualization tools like Spotfire, Tableau or equivalent
• Demonstrated project management skills
• Experience with Machine Learning and other advanced analytics techniques preferred
• Demonstrated effective communication skills. Demonstrated ability to communicate analytical and technical concepts in layman’s terms
• Demonstrated problem-solving and analytical skills. Demonstrated history of successful execution in a fast-paced environment and in managing multiple priorities effectively
• Demonstrated ability to influence Sr. Executives and cross-functional leaders
• Good understanding of clinical development functional areas and related processes. Proven track-record with leading complex cross-functional initiatives in Clinical Development
• Preferred to have 2+ years experience with agentic frameworks such as LangGraph, OpenAI agents, etc. (including orchestration with tool‑use), LLMs, vector databases, and retrieval pipelines (RAG).