Director, Scientific Capability Engineering

CAS•Columbus, OH

About The Position

The Director, Scientific Capability Engineering leads the organization responsible for developing and scaling the scientific tools and APIs that power CAS’s multi-domain science portfolio. The portfolio begins with core chemistry and is expected to expand into life science, materials science, and other emerging domains. The director sets the strategic direction and sequenced roadmap for capability enablement, is accountable for the organization’s technical foundation and performance across domains, and manages its operational budget and vendor relationships within approved guidelines. The role partners with domain science leaders, Product, and Knowledge Platforms leadership to sequence investment across scientific domains. The director owns the multi-year capability strategy and roadmap, establishes extensible architecture and platform patterns for onboarding new domains, and represents capability strategy to senior leadership. The role manages managers and senior engineers, develops organizational capability and succession plans, and fosters scientific rigor and engineering excellence. It also directs budget planning and vendor and licensing strategy, builds business cases for investment, and serves as the senior capability enablement contact for Product, domain science leaders, and executive stakeholders. The position is accountable for the reliability, scalability, and quality of production scientific tools and APIs, as well as data quality, intellectual property protection, compliance, governance, documentation, and operational standards that can scale with organizational growth.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Chemistry, Life Sciences, or a related field.
10+ years of progressive technology experience, including building tools and APIs for scientific or technical domains.
6+ years of people leadership experience, including managing managers.
Ability to set multi-year strategy and translate it into an executable, sequenced roadmap.
Skill in building and scaling organizations, including developing managers.
Persuasive communication skills to align executive stakeholders and domain experts around a shared roadmap.
Working knowledge of API design, scientific data modeling, and tools architecture.
Familiarity with the scientific domains supported; deep chemistry knowledge is required.
Understanding of how AI capabilities can accelerate scientific tool and API development.

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree preferred.
Experience scaling technical capability across multiple scientific domains or product lines.
Knowledge of life science, materials science, and other scientific domains.

Responsibilities

Own the multi-year strategy and roadmap for scientific tools and API capability enablement, sequencing investment as the science portfolio grows.
Own extensible architecture and platform patterns that allow new scientific domains to be onboarded without re-architecting core capability.
Represent capability enablement strategy to senior leadership and translate scientific domain roadmaps into technical investment decisions.
Manage a team of managers and senior engineers, with accountability for organizational performance, career development, and succession planning.
Build and scale domain-aware engineering capability.
Mitigate single-point-of-failure and key-person risk through cross-training teams.
Foster a culture of scientific rigor and engineering excellence across a growing, multi-domain organization.
Own the capability enablement operational budget and plan investment within senior-leadership guidelines.
Direct vendor and licensing strategy for scientific data, tools, and API infrastructure, evaluating renewals and usage against evolving needs.
Build business cases for incremental investments supporting the roadmap.
Serve as the senior point of contact for capability enablement with Product, domain science leaders, and executive stakeholders across chemistry, life science, and materials science.
Communicate capability enablement status, risks, and delivery progress to senior leadership and relevant stakeholders.
Align with peer leaders across Knowledge Platforms and Application Technology on shared standards, integration patterns, and dependencies.
Own the reliability, scalability, and quality of production scientific tools and APIs for internal and external consumers.
Ensure data quality, intellectual property protection, and compliance requirements are achieved.
Maintain governance, documentation, and operational standards that scale with organizational growth.