Associate Director of AI

Are you ready to leverage AI and bioinformatics to accelerate drug discovery and development at AstraZeneca? Do you want to work directly with scientists to implement cutting‑edge AI solutions—from traditional machine learning and deep learning to Large Language Models, Foundation Models, and Agentic AI workflows that drive real impact across the drug development pipeline?

You will join a dynamic Predictive AI and Data team that partners with experts across both pre‑clinical and clinical stages. Your work will focus on translating complex scientific data into actionable insights, demonstrating value by accelerating existing research processes, and helping build robust AI solutions in production alongside other data science and software engineering teams. This is a forward‑deployed role, giving you the opportunity to work hands‑on with end users, configure AI tools to meet their needs, and see your solutions move from concept to real‑world application.

• Collaborate with scientists from across the company to understand their challenges and work with them to build the platform that underpins their research.
• Build AI prototype solutions to demonstrate value in accelerating routine scientific processes.
• Calculate ROI and impact for AI projects obtaining necessary information and assumptions from stakeholders and future users.
• Apply a range of data science methodologies, developing novel data science solutions where off‑the‑shelf methodologies do not fit.
• Build and manage effective relationships with stakeholders to ensure utilization and value of information resources and services. Clearly and objectively communicate results, as well as their associated uncertainties and limitations to shape solutions.
• Champion a “production first attitude” to ensure the necessary infrastructure and platforms are available to scale exploratory research to production.
• Provide training and advice to collaborators on optimal use of key data, analysis platforms and the appropriate use of data science.
• Be a part of a hard‑working team, continuously improving AstraZeneca’s Machine Learning development environments, platforms, and tooling.
• Work closely and collaboratively with internal governance and compliance functions such as Cyber Security and Data Privacy to secure the computing environment without obstructing end‑user productivity.

• Bachelor’s degree, or Master’s (or equivalent years of experience) in mathematics, computer science, engineering, physics, statistics, computational sciences or a related field.
• Advanced skills in programming languages such as Python, and experience with AI libraries and frameworks (e.g., Tensor Flow, PyTorch).
• Proven experience in AI and machine learning, in areas such as deep learning, natural language processing, computer vision, and reinforcement learning.
• Experience in prompt engineering, implementing Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), and LLM fine‑tuning.
• Demonstrated experience in implementing generative AI workflows (large language models, other foundation models or agentic frameworks) to automate existing process or enable new ones, ideally in the Pharma and/or Healthcare space.
• Experience designing agentic AI workflows and an ability to plan strategically for the AI needs in a large organisation.
• Strong knowledge of software development and machine learning deployment principles.
• Demonstratable experience working with AWS or a similar cloud environment.
• Experience working with Kubernetes and/or container‑based application deployments.
• Excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to convey complex AI concepts to non‑technical partners.
• Strong leadership and project management skills, with a track record of leading successful AI projects.
• Knowledge of AI ethics and responsible AI practices.

• Experience in life sciences, healthcare, or pharmaceutical industry.
• Experience in a complex global organization.
• Experience using Dev Ops and MLOps to enable automation strategies.
• Experience with LLM frameworks (Lang Chain, Auto Gen, Llama Index).
• Experience working in an Agile team with knowledge or experience of working…