Senior Director, Head of Application Engineering and Productionization
Pfizer
9 hours ago
Remote friendly (Cambridge, MA)
United States
IT
Role Responsibilities
Strategy & architecture
- Define the overall strategy and governance model for application engineering and productionization, establishing frameworks, patterns, and standards for how AI and digital products are built, deployed, and maintained.
- Make architectural decisions on front-end, full-stack, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and CI/CD pipelines to ensure scalability, performance, and security.
- Partner with Heads of Agent Product Management, Data Engineering, and Data Strategy to maintain consistent architecture, shared infrastructure, and unified engineering standards across AIA.
Build & ship (governance level)
- Oversee the design, development, and rollout of applications and tools used across AIA pods, focusing on reuse and maintainability.
- Lead front-end and full-stack development teams in implementing secure, scalable interfaces and integrations with enterprise systems and APIs.
- Establish and govern CI/CD pipelines, release management, and environment configuration while maintaining alignment with security and quality standards.
- Collaborate with agent and AI/ML engineering teams to move AI/ML models into production using strong deployment, versioning, and monitoring practices.
Quality & reliability
- Define quality standards and performance metrics (uptime, latency, reliability, user experience).
- Oversee automated testing, logging, and observability implementations.
- Establish mechanisms for proactive issue detection, incident response, and continuous improvement of application stability and security.
Team & culture
- Build and lead a high-performing engineering organization (~30 FTEs, hundreds of contractors) across front-end, full-stack, DevOps, and architecture.
- Set technical direction, review design and code, and mentor senior engineers and engineering managers.
- Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous learning with reusable components, automation, and engineering rigor.
Cross-functional impact
- Partner with Data Engineering, Product, Agent Product Management, and Platform Ops to integrate applications with data pipelines, APIs, and orchestration frameworks.
- Align engineering practices with enterprise governance, security, and compliance requirements.
- Maintain feedback loops with users and stakeholders to shape application roadmaps.
- Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and implications to senior leadership.
Innovation & best practices
- Promote modern software development methodologies and tooling (agile delivery, DevOps, continuous delivery).
- Stay current on emerging trends in application engineering, AI integration, and cloud infrastructure.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or related field required; Master’s strongly preferred.
- 12+ years of relevant professional experience.
- Proven people-leadership experience building and developing high-performing teams.
- Experience in regulated industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals, banking, insurance).
- Ability to navigate and influence within large, complex organizations.
- Strong stakeholder management across diverse functions and seniority levels.
- Recognized industry thought leader with enterprise-wide strategic impact.
- Program and operations management expertise in large, regulated environments.
- Success managing quality standards, efficient development teams, and complex staffing/resource allocation.
- Deep expertise in cross-functional integration and operational effectiveness within a large corporate ecosystem.
Application instructions / other job details
- Last Date to Apply for Job: May 1st, 2026
- Ability to travel based on business needs
- This position is hybrid and requires working onsite 2 to 3 days per week
- NOT eligible for Relocation Package
Strategy & architecture
- Define the overall strategy and governance model for application engineering and productionization, establishing frameworks, patterns, and standards for how AI and digital products are built, deployed, and maintained.
- Make architectural decisions on front-end, full-stack, and cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and CI/CD pipelines to ensure scalability, performance, and security.
- Partner with Heads of Agent Product Management, Data Engineering, and Data Strategy to maintain consistent architecture, shared infrastructure, and unified engineering standards across AIA.
Build & ship (governance level)
- Oversee the design, development, and rollout of applications and tools used across AIA pods, focusing on reuse and maintainability.
- Lead front-end and full-stack development teams in implementing secure, scalable interfaces and integrations with enterprise systems and APIs.
- Establish and govern CI/CD pipelines, release management, and environment configuration while maintaining alignment with security and quality standards.
- Collaborate with agent and AI/ML engineering teams to move AI/ML models into production using strong deployment, versioning, and monitoring practices.
Quality & reliability
- Define quality standards and performance metrics (uptime, latency, reliability, user experience).
- Oversee automated testing, logging, and observability implementations.
- Establish mechanisms for proactive issue detection, incident response, and continuous improvement of application stability and security.
Team & culture
- Build and lead a high-performing engineering organization (~30 FTEs, hundreds of contractors) across front-end, full-stack, DevOps, and architecture.
- Set technical direction, review design and code, and mentor senior engineers and engineering managers.
- Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous learning with reusable components, automation, and engineering rigor.
Cross-functional impact
- Partner with Data Engineering, Product, Agent Product Management, and Platform Ops to integrate applications with data pipelines, APIs, and orchestration frameworks.
- Align engineering practices with enterprise governance, security, and compliance requirements.
- Maintain feedback loops with users and stakeholders to shape application roadmaps.
- Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and implications to senior leadership.
Innovation & best practices
- Promote modern software development methodologies and tooling (agile delivery, DevOps, continuous delivery).
- Stay current on emerging trends in application engineering, AI integration, and cloud infrastructure.
Basic Qualifications
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science/Engineering or related field required; Master’s strongly preferred.
- 12+ years of relevant professional experience.
- Proven people-leadership experience building and developing high-performing teams.
- Experience in regulated industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals, banking, insurance).
- Ability to navigate and influence within large, complex organizations.
- Strong stakeholder management across diverse functions and seniority levels.
- Recognized industry thought leader with enterprise-wide strategic impact.
- Program and operations management expertise in large, regulated environments.
- Success managing quality standards, efficient development teams, and complex staffing/resource allocation.
- Deep expertise in cross-functional integration and operational effectiveness within a large corporate ecosystem.
Application instructions / other job details
- Last Date to Apply for Job: May 1st, 2026
- Ability to travel based on business needs
- This position is hybrid and requires working onsite 2 to 3 days per week
- NOT eligible for Relocation Package