ROLE SUMMARY
The Senior Director, Applied AI is a system-level AI and architecture leader who shapes enterprise and domain-level direction by connecting technological possibility to business value, operating-model design, and measurable outcomes. You determine what should be built and why it matters, how it should be governed, and how to keep solutions coherent at scale — working through strategic influence, architectural direction, standards, and decision frameworks.
You are also a builder. You stay close enough to the technology to keep your judgment credible — architecting and reviewing the hardest technical decisions, and setting the engineering bar others meet. And you lead a mixed team of full-time engineers, contractors, and vendor partners whose work you scope, direct, and hold to Pfizer's quality and security standards.
As part of Pfizer's commercial AI organization, you help deliver on Pfizer's ambition to be the most AI-forward company — ensuring AI investments translate into coherent, enterprise-wide value rather than disconnected local solutions.
Why This Role Matters
Pfizer's purpose — breakthroughs that change patients' lives — has always depended on the company's willingness to transform how it works, not only what it discovers. Being the most AI-forward company, and reinventing how we work from end to end, is the next chapter in that story. Realizing that ambition depends on doing AI coherently and at scale, not as a set of disconnected efforts. This role ensures the organization builds AI that is sound, reusable, and aligned — preventing fragmentation and technical debt while staying technical enough to know whether what is proposed is actually buildable. You are responsible for ensuring AI investments produce real outcomes, reusable capabilities, and a unified direction.
Candidate Profile
You are a system thinker and transformation shaper, comfortable under ambiguity and at enterprise scale, who has kept your hands on the technology. You combine strong technical judgment and current hands-on ability with business acumen, framing AI not as a technology initiative but as a driver of operational and strategic transformation. You are equally effective influencing senior executives, guiding technical leaders, and directing the engineers, contractors, and vendors who do the build.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES
1) Enterprise Strategy & Transformation — Shape and evolve enterprise or domain-level AI strategy, grounded in clear business value and transformation outcomes. Connect AI initiatives explicitly to measurable impact, and influence leadership on where AI should be applied and how it should reshape processes and operating models.
2) System-Level Architecture & Operating-Model Design — Design and evolve enterprise AI operating models, the target technology landscape, and the relationships between platforms, capabilities, and embedded solutions. Create decision frameworks and architectural principles that drive consistent decisions across teams.
3) Portfolio & Trade-off Leadership — Drive portfolio-level architectural decisions across initiatives, platforms, and reusable capabilities. Balance value vs. cost, speed vs. governance, standardization vs. flexibility, and innovation vs. reliability, steering toward enterprise reuse and away from duplication.
4) Standards, Governance & Enterprise Coherence — Define and steward “what good looks like” across AI architecture, solution design, and operational execution — quality, evaluation and governance, integration patterns, reuse and modularity. Actively prevent fragmentation, architectural drift, and systemic technical debt.
5) Hands-on Technical Leadership — Stay hands-on where it matters — architecture and code review with modern AI and agent frameworks — to validate emerging technology, de-risk decisions, and keep direction grounded in what is buildable. You lead from the front on the hardest problems rather than directing from a distance.
6) Team, Vendor & Delivery Leadership — Lead a mixed team of full-time engineers, contractors, and vendor partners across one or more initiatives. Scope and direct vendor work, set quality and security standards, manage performance and spend, and ensure critical capability and IP stay with Pfizer. Mentor Directors and engineers and raise the technical bar across the group.
7) External Signal Integration & Thought Leadership — Continuously assess emerging technologies, the vendor landscape, industry trends, and research. Translate signal into practical, enterprise-relevant implications, distinguish hype from viable solutions, and act as an internal and external thought leader.
Technical Profile
The Senior Director is defined not by being the deepest specialist in every area, but by the ability to synthesize across them — with credible, current hands-on ability in a subset. Expected breadth across: agentic systems and LLMs; traditional AI/ML and neural networks; data and business analytics and data architecture; AI-readiness of data and retrieval architecture; solution-design architecture; tracing, monitoring and observability; and AI guardrails and governance. The differentiator is cross-domain synthesis and orchestration, paired with enough hands-on depth to lead the build.
QUALIFICATIONS
Basic Qualifications
- 12+ years in AI, data, or software architecture, with significant experience at enterprise or multi-domain scale.
- Proven ability to shape enterprise or domain-level strategy and architecture direction, tied to measurable business outcomes.
- Current hands-on technical proficiency — able to read, write, build, and review code with modern AI / agent frameworks.
- Experience leading full-time engineers, contractors, and vendor partners to deliver production-grade systems.
- Strong experience in operating-model design, governance frameworks, and architectural standardization.
- Demonstrated ability to influence senior executive stakeholders.
- Deep understanding across AI/ML and generative AI, system architecture, data architecture, and software engineering.
- Excellent communication, translating complexity into clear business outcomes.
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience in large, regulated enterprises (e.g., pharma, healthcare, finance).
- Familiarity with AI governance and guardrails, AI-readiness and retrieval architectures, and observability and monitoring.
- Experience shaping enterprise AI strategies, roadmaps, or transformation programs.
- Experience managing vendor / contractor budgets and statements of work.
- Recognized internal or external thought-leadership presence.
Last Day to Apply: June 14, 2026
Location: Selected colleague must be onsite 2.5x weekly. Must be able to support EST timezone
The annual base salary for this position ranges from $214,900.00 to $358,100.00. In addition, this position is eligible for participation in Pfizer’s Global Performance Plan with a bonus target of 22.5% of the base salary and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program. We offer comprehensive and generous benefits and programs to help our colleagues lead healthy lives and to support each of life’s moments. Benefits offered include a 401(k) plan with Pfizer Matching Contributions and an additional Pfizer Retirement Savings Contribution, paid vacation, holiday and personal days, paid caregiver/parental and medical leave, and health benefits to include medical, prescription drug, dental and vision coverage. Learn more at Pfizer Candidate Site – U.S. Benefits | (uscandidates.mypfizerbenefits.com). Pfizer compensation structures and benefit packages are aligned based on the location of hire. The United States salary range provided does not apply to Tampa, FL or any location outside of the United States.
Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility.
Candidates must be authorized to be employed in the U.S. by any employer.
U.S. work visa sponsorship (such as TN, O-1, H-1B, etc.) is not available for this role now or in the future.
Sunshine Act
Pfizer reports payments and other transfers of value to health care providers as required by federal and state transparency laws and implementing regulations. These laws and regulations require Pfizer to provide government agencies with information such as a health care provider’s name, address and the type of payments or other value received, generally for public disclosure. Subject to further legal review and statutory or regulatory clarification, which Pfizer intends to pursue, reimbursement of recruiting expenses for licensed physicians may constitute a reportable transfer of value under the federal transparency law commonly known as the Sunshine Act. Therefore, if you are a licensed physician who incurs recruiting expenses as a result of interviewing with Pfizer that we pay or reimburse, your name, address and the amount of payments made currently will be reported to the government. If you have questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact your Talent Acquisition representative.
EEO & Employment Eligibility
Pfizer is committed to equal opportunity in the terms and conditions of employment for all employees and job applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, gender identity or gender expression, national origin, disability or veteran status. Pfizer also complies with all applicable national, state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act and IRCA. Pfizer is an E-Verify employer. This position requires permanent work authorization in the United States.
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