Novartis
Director Data Science & Agentic AI
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Director – AI Strategy & Multi-Agent Systems (Agentic AI)
Intake: [SPPO] GDD Data Strategy (Data Science & AI Strategy)
Location: Hybrid Working (Primary: Dublin, Ireland | Secondary: Barcelona, Spain – please search REQ-10076880)
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Salary Range: £100,240.00 – £186,160.00 (Band Level 6, Annual Base Salary for London; varies by location)
About the Role
Independently lead agentic AI initiatives within Novartis Global Drug Development (GDD) to accelerate the delivery of transformative medicines and drive patient-centric drug discovery. As a senior AI leader, you will champion a culture of data-driven, AI-augmented decision-making, collaborating across clinical development, translational research, and regulatory) functions.
In this transformative role, you will:
- Design and implement autonomous AI systems, including multi-agent architectures, tool-using LLMs, and workflow orchestration, to reduce time-to-insight and time-to-patient for global drug development programs.
- Shape the agentic AI strategy within your domain, align with enterprise-level GDD objectives, and drive governance frameworks that ensure reliability, accountability, and scalability.
- Mentor and develop teams of data scientists and AI engineers to revolutionise applied AI in pharmaceutical development.
- Spearhead innovation by evaluating cutting-edge AI models, reasoning systems, and responsible AI practices, ensuring compliance with EU AI Act and regulatory standards.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership
- Develop and execute a roadmap for agentic AI adoption, mapping technical solutions (e.g., RAG, MCP frameworks, agent orchestration) to real-world business challenges across verticals.
- Align AI initiatives with clinical development, translational research, and regulatory priorities, ensuring seamless cross-functional collaboration.
- Act as the Novartis ambassador for agentic AI, porting forward-stacked innovations via conference presentations, academic publications, and thought leadership initiatives.
Technical Deep Dive
- Define and prototype production-grade agentic systems, including:
- Multi-agent coordination (language models, reasoning agents, tool integrations).
- Memory & context management for authoritative, trustworthy AI outputs.
- Human-in-the-loop governance frameworks to minimize hallucination risk and ensure auditability.
- Establish AI evaluation frameworks that validate performance metrics such as:
- Task completion accuracy.
- Regulatory-grade auditability.
- Reliability in research-relevant domains.
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Data Governance & Foundation Building
- Create and enforce data standards for agentic systems, ensuring data quality, accessibility, and governance.
- Integrate internal/external data sources, APIs, and knowledge bases securely while seamlessly interoperating with operational workflows.
- Address data privacy risks, particularly in high-stakes gigascience and cross-border data transfers (CBDT compliance).
Bridging Gap Between Tech & Business
- Translate AI research questions and technical constraints into actionable stakeholder roadmaps, balancing agility with many-centered accountability.
- Deliver agile consultancy on high-priority, ad-hoc AI/ML challenges for globally dispersed scientist teams.
- Prioritize resources effectively, mitigating cross-team dependency risks and stakeholder misalignment.
Team Development (If Scope Affects)
- Cultivate and mentor next-gen data scientists and AI engineers, embedding responsible-AI principles and advanced agentic design patterns into their capabilities.
- Promote collaborative innovation by creating cultures that embrace systems-thinking, technical humility, and cross-disciplinary solutions.
Required Qualifications
Experience
- 10+ years in production AI/ML development, with demonstrated expertise in agentic design frameworks (e.g., LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI).
- Experience across biomedical informatics, pharma assay development, or related high-risk R&D data science.
- Proven capability to navigate life sciences AI governance, including of stakeholder change management in regulated environments.
Education
- Advanced degree in AI, data science, computational biology, or healthcare informatics (PhD or equivalent preferred).
Technical Know-How
- Deep expertise in:
- LLM-based reasoning, tool-using agents, and ** pomoc systems**.
- RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and relevance signal pressing.
- Traditional AI governance (bias mitigation, model output safety, auditing).
- Production-grade ML pipelines for LLM fine-tuning, A/B testing, and MLOps/GitLAR workflows.
- Statistical ML, NLP, and wearable/cascading GenAI models.
- Data foundations (master data, quality infrastructures, metadata management).
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Soft Skills
- Leadership with a sharp stakeholder alignment. Ability to speak data/regulatory trade-offs fluently to C-level and lab scientists.
- Mentorship mindset for junior AI roles, and technical storytelling.
- Consumer of frontier AI papers and translator of technical literature for non-technical teams.
Desired Skills
- Agile/Scrum; curiosity-driven raison‘d’être for enhancing data sciences tools.
- English fluency for publications, conference presentations (e.g., NeurIPS, CHI, CORE AI).
- Understanding of Pfizer, GWF aspect of global data-sharing collaborations (valuable but not mandatory).
How You’ll Fit into Novartis
Novartis is redefining medicine for people worldwide. As you grow here, you will move from technical design to strategic innovation, transforming how revolutionary treatments reach patients faster. Tying together AI and healthcare systems entrusted you with lifelong learning, collaboration, and purpose. To learn about benefits: [Novartis Life Handbook](https://www.novartis.com/siscus/% %{drotation[basic]}).
Note: For Chinese staff, cross-border data transfer policy requires TaleNovLocal Recruiting (provided job REQ).
Benchmarking Statement
Materializing AI potential requires transcending research into production: operational expertise, safe evaluation, transparency & scalability.
All Novartis roles: Gender neutrality in salary, compliance with US EPSA principles, and a commitment to discrimination-free environments, as defined by our Full EEO Policy.
Security Note: Novartis is fully protected against fraudulent fake job ads. Never verify Job Offers without prior review. Forójdáků do Novartis Recruiting directly.
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