Director, Data & AI Platforms

Johnson & Johnson•Raritan, NJ

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Johnson & Johnson is recruiting a Director, Data & AI Platforms for its DePuy Synthes organization. The role is based in Raritan, New Jersey, on a hybrid work model. DePuy Synthes is preparing to become a standalone orthopaedics-focused company, and this position offers the opportunity to build the data and AI platforms that will support the business through separation and beyond. Reporting to the Senior Director, Enterprise Data & AI Architect, the Director owns the enterprise Data & AI Platforms tower and leads four platform teams: Core Data Platform & Integration, Data & BI Platforms, AI Runtime & Serving, and Platform Reliability & DevEx. The role also directs corresponding engineering pods in Bengaluru on a dotted-line basis in partnership with GCC leadership. The Director will maintain business continuity through separation and TSA exits, and consolidate regional and functional platforms into a governed, AI-ready lakehouse on AWS and Databricks. The position combines platform strategy and hands-on technical leadership. It is accountable for the platform roadmap, budget, operations, architecture implementation, reliability, vendor management, and development of US and GCC teams. The Director partners with Data Science, MDM & Data Governance, business leaders, and GCC leadership to deliver reusable self-service platform capabilities for analytics, AI, and agentic solutions. Travel is up to 10%, and English proficiency is required.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
15 or more years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, or cloud engineering.
At least 7 years leading platform engineering teams, including experience leading managers.
Proven delivery of enterprise lakehouse platforms on Databricks and AWS, including services such as S3, Glue, MSK, IAM, and Lake Formation, and experience with Unity Catalog.
Hands-on depth in Spark, SQL, Python, streaming, orchestration such as Airflow or Databricks Workflows, and data modeling; ability to review designs and code.
Experience operating production AI/ML platforms, including model serving, RAG/retrieval, LLMOps/MLOps, and evaluation.
Strong DevSecOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code such as Terraform, SRE, and FinOps practices.
Track record of consolidating or migrating legacy platforms at scale with measurable cost and reliability gains.
Experience leading distributed and offshore teams and managing platform budgets and vendors.
Demonstrated ability to communicate with and influence VP- and C-level stakeholders.
English proficiency.

Nice To Haves

Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.
Experience in medical devices, life sciences, or another regulated industry, including GxP, CSV/CSA, 21 CFR Part 11, or data privacy.
Experience with separations, divestitures, or TSA exits.
Experience with semantic layers, data products, and data marketplaces.
Experience with agentic AI platforms such as Amazon Bedrock AgentCore or MCP.
Databricks, AWS, or Kubernetes certifications.

Responsibilities

Own the strategy, roadmap, budget, and operations of enterprise Data & AI platforms on AWS and Databricks.
Translate target-state architecture and standards into self-service platform services for domain, data science, and delivery teams.
Maintain business continuity through separation by standing up and stabilizing cloned and transitional platforms.
Plan and deliver TSA exits from Johnson & Johnson platforms on time and within budget, moving directly to the target platform.
Consolidate regional and functional data lakes, ingestion frameworks, and BI tools into a governed lakehouse, partnering with MDM & Data Governance to consolidate MDM and catalog tooling.
Lead ingestion and streaming, lakehouse and medallion design, orchestration, and API integration, and establish patterns for data quality, lineage, data contracts, and cost-efficient processing.
Manage dependencies across legacy, transitional, and target-state pipelines to maintain downstream stability during cutover.
Lead Data & BI platform capabilities, including semantic layers and metrics, BI platforms, data products and marketplaces, and unstructured data.
Lead AI Runtime & Serving capabilities, including agentic runtime, model serving and gateway, retrieval and context services, model and prompt lifecycle, and evaluation tooling.
Lead Platform Reliability & DevEx capabilities, including DevSecOps, CI/CD, Infrastructure-as-Code, internal developer platforms, observability, SLOs, operations, and FinOps.
Enforce identity, guardrails, and release criteria established by the Architecture Standards & Responsible AI function, including GxP and non-GxP separation.
Serve as a standing member of the Architecture Review Board and deputize for the Senior Director in architecture, CDAO, and CIO forums.
Partner with Data Science, MDM & Data Governance, business-facing leaders, and GCC leadership to sequence platform capabilities against business priorities.
Present platform status, risks, financials, and decisions to senior leadership.
Build, lead, and develop platform managers and engineers across US and GCC teams, including hiring, goal setting, and career development.
Direct GCC engineering pods through practice leads, setting priorities and quality standards.
Operate the platform tower with product discipline, including a service catalog, SLAs, adoption metrics, and unit costs.
Establish named successors and cross-paired coverage so platform responsibilities are not single-threaded.
Manage platform vendors and partners, including commercial terms, consumption, and performance.
Deliver measurable outcomes in TSA exits, platform adoption and retirement of tools, reliability, incident reduction, costs, delivery speed, production AI use cases, and safe adoption of new AI capabilities.

Benefits

Participation in the company’s consolidated retirement plan (pension), subject to plan terms.
401(k) savings plan, subject to plan terms.
Eligibility to participate in the long-term incentive program.
Vacation: 120 hours per calendar year.
Sick time: 40 hours per calendar year, with different amounts for employees residing in Colorado or Washington.
Holiday pay, including floating holidays: 13 days per calendar year.
Work, Personal and Family Time: up to 40 hours per calendar year.
Parental leave: 480 hours within one year of a child’s birth, adoption, or foster care placement.
Bereavement leave: 240 hours for an immediate family member and 40 hours for an extended family member per calendar year.
Caregiver leave: 80 hours in a 52-week rolling period.
Volunteer leave: 32 hours per calendar year.
Military spouse time-off: 80 hours per calendar year.