Senior Director/ Head Research Engineering

Role Summary

Senior Director/Head Research Engineering. Responsible for leading a team that designs, develops, and implements scientific data management and analytical platforms within the Informatics and Predictive Sciences department. Leverages expertise in cloud-based application development and large language models to build and enhance data systems, ingestion pipelines, visualizations, and analytical tools to meet scientific objectives.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with Research leadership to ensure clear communication, tracking and delivery of shared Research objectives.
• Oversee staffing objectives through onboarding and mentorship for Research Engineering talent and manage vendor resources.
• Provide guidance on programming languages, evaluation frameworks, security/testing methodologies, and system scalability.
• Develop new data engineering approaches to accelerate data discovery, delivery and analysis, including the use of LLMs.
• Lead exploration of emerging LLM/AI models and drive experimentation to support BMS use cases.
• Evaluate third-party data engineering and LLM solutions and manage vendor contracts.
• Participate in budget planning and provide leadership for Research Engineering budgeting decisions.
• Work with IT to perform risk assessments on cloud architectures and vendor solutions for cost, scalability, and infrastructure concerns.
• Provide oversight on regulatory requirements for custom, commercial, and/open-source systems, including 21 CFR Part 11, HIPAA, GDPR, and GxP.

Skills

• Experience building and maintaining cloud-native applications using AWS services (IAM, S3, Athena, Glue, Batch, Lambda, Fargate, API Gateway, Bedrock, etc.).
• Proficiency in Python, SQL, R, database design, and at least one front-end framework (React, Angular, Streamlit, or similar).
• Experience with large-scale scientific systems design and integration patterns.
• Ability to evaluate performance, benchmarking, and troubleshooting of AI/LLM-based applications.
• Familiarity with containerization, agile methodologies, and cloud-native development patterns.
• Experience building or enhancing a laboratory informatics system (LIMS) in a research or drug development context.
• Ability to explore and pilot innovative technology solutions including LLMs.
• Experience managing large development teams and projects in a collaborative environment.
• Experience managing budgets and vendor contracts.

Education

• Bachelor's Degree with 15+ years of experience; or master's degree with 12+ years; or PhD with 10+ years in engineering or biology.
• 8+ years of leadership experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• 10+ years combined in developing large-scale cloud-based scientific data platforms in Biotech/Pharma, with 6+ years in a leadership role.
• Experience in strategic architecture with LLM capabilities, including RAG, agentic frameworks, and LLM testing frameworks.
• Excellent communication skills with ability to gather architecture requirements and deliver tasks timely.
• Proven track record managing technical projects and cross-functional teams.
• Ability to multitask in a fast-paced research/technical environment and show independent thinking toward scientific questions.