Senior Director, Applied AI - US Commercial

Pfizer • New York, NY

1d • $214,900 - $358,100 • Onsite

About The Position

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. This role determines 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. The individual is also a builder, staying close enough to the technology to keep judgment credible — architecting and reviewing the hardest technical decisions, and setting the engineering bar others meet. They lead a mixed team of full-time engineers, contractors, and vendor partners whose work is scoped, directed, and held to Pfizer's quality and security standards. As part of Pfizer's commercial AI organization, this role helps 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. 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. The Senior Director is responsible for ensuring AI investments produce real outcomes, reusable capabilities, and a unified direction. The ideal candidate is a system thinker and transformation shaper, comfortable under ambiguity and at enterprise scale, who has kept their hands on the technology. They 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. They are equally effective influencing senior executives, guiding technical leaders, and directing the engineers, contractors, and vendors who do the build.

Requirements

• 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.
• Candidates must be authorized to be employed in the U.S. by any employer.
• This position requires permanent work authorization in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• 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.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Lead from the front on the hardest problems rather than directing from a distance.
• 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.
• 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.

Benefits

• 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
• health benefits to include medical, prescription drug, dental and vision coverage
• Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director
• Education Level: No Education Listed