Associate Director, AI Engineering

Role Summary

Lead within Data Science & Analytics (DSA) responsible for strategy, talent management, and operations delivery. Identifies new capabilities to drive analytics innovation and value creation. Fosters a culture of experimentation to enable data-driven insights for complex business problems. Influences cross-functional leaders to maximize the potential of data and advanced analytics techniques such as machine learning and artificial intelligence. Leads enablement of GenAI and agentic AI across clinical development and directs a team of data scientists to develop these applications, partnering with internal stakeholders to capture business needs and test and roll out AI solutions and 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

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