Senior Director, Machine Learning & AI (BPD)

AstraZeneca • Gaithersburg, MD

1d

About The Position

AstraZeneca's Biopharmaceutical Development (BPD) function is seeking a Senior Director, Machine Learning & AI to lead their ML & AI team. This role is crucial for translating BPD's 'Predict First CMC' ambition into a comprehensive AI strategy and roadmap. The Director will be responsible for identifying, developing, and scaling AI capabilities that deliver scientific and business value, working closely with various internal and external partners. The position requires a blend of strategic leadership and technical expertise to guide investment, build organizational capability, drive adoption, and manage risks associated with AI implementation in a regulated environment. Success will be measured by the tangible impact of AI solutions on knowledge retrieval, regulatory submissions, modeling capabilities, and overall team performance.

Requirements

• Advanced degree (MSc or PhD) in a quantitative discipline: computer science, machine learning, statistics, applied mathematics, physics, computational biology, chemical/biochemical engineering, or a closely related field.
• PhD plus 7 years of relevant experience, or MSc plus 10 years of experience.
• Track record of leading ML&AI teams that deliver production capability, not just prototypes, in regulated or scientifically demanding environments.
• Deep, current, hands-on knowledge across classical ML, deep learning, foundation or language models, agentic systems, digital twins, knowledge graphs, RAG, and MLOps.
• Strong software engineering discipline; fluent in Python and modern ML tooling.
• Comfortable working in cloud environments such as Azure or AWS, including containerized workloads and distributed compute.
• Experience turning ambiguous scientific or business problems into shaped AI solutions, including knowing when AI is not the right answer.
• Ability to influence senior stakeholders across scientific, technical, and business functions.
• Ability to make clear recommendations under uncertainty.
• Experience building durable partnerships with IT/platform teams, external vendors, and academic groups, with clear commercial, technical, and delivery outcomes.

Nice To Haves

• Domain understanding of biologics CMC, bioprocess development, formulation, analytical development, or regulatory submissions.
• Familiarity with FAIR data principles, data product thinking, ontologies, and knowledge graphs applied to scientific data.
• Experience with GxP-adjacent AI, model validation for regulated use, or contribution to regulatory advocacy on AI/ML.
• Peer-reviewed publications or recognized external contributions in applied ML for life sciences.

Responsibilities

• Define and maintain BPD’s multi-year ML&AI strategy, aligned with a Predict-First CMC organization, the BPD digital transformation roadmap, and AZ’s AI30 ambitions.
• Be accountable for the BPD AI portfolio across AI Foundations & Platforms, Knowledge Management, Modelling & Digital Twins, and Submission & Report Authoring.
• Set portfolio priorities, making evidence-based recommendations on build, buy, partner, pause, or stop decisions.
• Provide senior technical oversight of model strategy, evaluation, and deployment for various AI models (predictive ML, mechanistic, hybrid, protein sequence/structure, knowledge graphs, RAG, agentic architectures).
• Set practical engineering standards for the team, including reproducibility, model risk management, MLOps, evaluation frameworks, and human-in-the-loop approaches for GxP-adjacent use cases.
• Chair or lead technical reviews of high-risk or high-value deliverables.
• Lead and develop a high-performing ML & AI team, growing capability through hires, secondments, PDRAs, and vendor partnerships.
• Create the operating model, ownership, and delivery discipline for the ML & AI team.
• Support AI training and culture change across BPD.
• Work with other transformation leads to align investment, dependencies, and delivery plans across AI, data, and automation.
• Partner with R&D IT to ensure enterprise platforms meet BPD’s scientific needs and BPD requirements are visible in strategic roadmaps.
• Serve as BPD’s senior technical voice into Enterprise AI, adopting enterprise capabilities, escalating gaps, and shaping shared offerings.
• Collaborate with CMC Statistics, Informatics & Software Engineering, and Robotics & Automation Development colleagues.
• Build Physical AI as an emerging BPD capability by connecting ML&AI models with laboratory automation and workflows.
• Ensure BPD’s AI work aligns with AZ AI governance, data governance, information security, and GxP expectations.
• Contribute to AZ's regulatory advocacy on AI in CMC.
• Be accountable for responsible AI practice, including model documentation, validation evidence, bias and robustness testing, and lifecycle management.
• Work with the AI Partnerships lead to bring external thinking into BPD through collaborations and vendor evaluations.
• Represent BPD externally through publications, conferences, and standards forums.
• Brief digital transformation and BPD leadership on progress, value, trade-offs, and risk.
• Act as a trusted advisor to BPD functional leaders on AI's applicability.

Benefits

• Inclusive environment where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants and employees.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior