Senior Director, Head of Application Engineering and Productionization

Role Summary

The AI Acceleration (AIA) function within the Chief Marketing Office (CMO) is the single, business-led engine that owns the design, delivery, and scale-up of priority AI capabilities across Commercial. AIA works in tight collaboration with various Pfizer functions to deploy and maintain production-grade AI solutions that simplify how we work and drive measurable value across all processes.

Lead the application engineering and productionization function to design, build, and scale enterprise applications and AI/ML solutions, working closely with the Platform Ops team in Digital to deliver effective deployments.

• 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
  • Align on architectural decisions on front-end, full-stack, cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP), and CI/CD pipelines, to ensure scalability, performance, and security
  • Partner with the Heads of Agent Product Management, Full Stack Development, 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, with a focus 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, govern and align to CI/CD pipelines, release management, and environment configuration for applications and maintain alignment with security and quality standards
  • Collaborate with agent and AI/ML engineering teams to move AI/ML models into production with strong deployment, versioning, and monitoring practices
• Quality & reliability
  • Define quality standards and performance metrics for applications covering uptime, latency, reliability, and user experience
  • Oversee the implementation of automated testing, logging, and observability platforms to ensure operational excellence
  • 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) across front-end, full-stack, Dev Ops, and architecture disciplines
  • Set strong technical direction, review design and code, and mentor senior engineers and engineering managers to raise the organizational engineering bar
  • Foster a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous learning, emphasizing reusable components, automation, and engineering rigor
• Cross-functional impact
  • Partner with Data Engineering, Product, Agent Product Management, and Platform Ops teams to ensure seamless integration of applications with data pipelines, APIs, and orchestration frameworks
  • Work with the Data Strategy & Performance team to align engineering practices with enterprise governance, security, and compliance requirements
  • Maintain close feedback loops with users and stakeholders to shape application roadmaps based on adoption, performance, and business impact
  • Communicate technical decisions, trade-offs, and implications clearly to senior leadership, connecting architecture and engineering choices to business outcomes
• Innovation & best practices
  • Promote adoption of modern software development methodologies and tooling, including agile delivery, Dev Ops, and continuous delivery frameworks
  • Stay current on emerging trends in application engineering, AI integration, and cloud infrastructure, applying these insights to strengthen engineering practices and drive innovation

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field required;
  Master’s degree strongly preferred.
• 12+ years of relevant professional experience.
• Proven people‑leadership experience, with a track record of building and developing high‑performing teams.
• Experience working within regulated industries (e.g., pharmaceuticals, banking, insurance).
• Demonstrated ability to navigate and…