Sr. Director, Solution Architecture

Pfizer • New York City, NY

18h • Hybrid

About The Position

This role holds global architectural accountability for the Medical Affairs digital and AI portfolio — a multi-million-dollar technology landscape spanning Field Medical enablement, omnichannel HCP engagement, and next-generation Agentic AI and LLM-based systems. Scope includes the Medical Affairs technology blueprint, integration standards, solution architecture and reuse patterns. This role has direct impact on total-cost-of-ownership and ROI outcomes tracked against the annual technology investment budget. This is a dual-impact role: the Sr. Director is simultaneously the chief architectural authority across a highly matrixed global ecosystem — partnering with a peer Sr. Director of Engineering, four Product Owners who define product vision across the Medical Affairs portfolio, and Pfizer Digital's federated architecture community — and a hands-on, working architect who personally designs and documents solution architecture for the highest-priority enterprise platforms. The role is structured as a technical pod lead: it carries direct people-management accountability for a dedicated UX Designer and Scrum Master, giving this leader end-to-end accountability for technical design, user experience, and delivery cadence for the portfolio's highest-priority builds. This structure keeps design, architecture, and delivery accountable to a single leader rather than coordinated across separate reporting lines. The Sr. Director also serves as a primary, trusted digital advisor to senior Medical Affairs business executives — including the Head of US Medical Affairs, Therapeutic Area/Category Leads, Field Medical Leads, MEI Leads and Compliance and Legal Leads — requiring the executive presence to translate advanced technical paradigms into value-driven business strategy and win alignment across stakeholders who do not report into this role. The Sr. Director, Solution Architecture, Medical AI Acceleration and Delivery is globally accountable for defining and driving end-to-end solution design, data integration, and AI strategy across the Medical Affairs digital portfolio. This role directly architects next-generation Agentic AI platforms, LLM fine-tuning pipelines, and AI integrations into existing enterprise data systems, with key strategic priorities including AI-based productivity solutions for global Field Medical teams (e.g., MSLs) and automated, compliant omnichannel HCP engagement journeys — all within an intensely regulated global environment.

Requirements

• Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field.
• 12+ years of experience in IT, systems architecture, or digital engineering; 8+ years as a hands-on, working Solution Architect.
• Proven experience designing AI-oriented solutions (LLMs, RAG, or agentic systems) and complex data integrations.
• Experience leading and mentoring digital professionals (UX, Scrum, or Engineering) and coordinating matrixed engineering resources.
• Exceptional verbal and written communication skills, with a track record of presenting to and influencing VP-level and executive audiences.
• Demonstrated diplomacy, negotiation, and matrix-management skill, with a record of driving alignment across multi-disciplinary teams.
• Hands-on experience with AI/NLP/LLM implementations and LLMOps/AIOps pipelines; deep expertise in modern cloud architecture (AWS or Azure) and API-first design.
• Practical understanding of Veeva CRM and the Salesforce ecosystem (Life Sciences Cloud and/or Marketing Cloud).
• Permanent work authorization in the United States.

Nice To Haves

• Master's degree in a technical or business-related field.
• 5+ years in Life Sciences or Pharmaceutical, with domain knowledge of Medical Affairs operations, Field Medical (MSL) activity, and digital HCP engagement.
• Direct experience collaborating with Therapeutic Area leaders, Field Medical executives, or Medical Affairs teams.
• Deep familiarity with GxP compliance, FDA regulation, software validation, MLR processes, and global data privacy standards (GDPR, HIPAA).
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect, Salesforce Certified System/Application Architect, or AI Engineering/Architecture credentials.
• Practical experience with Agile/Scrum frameworks and Design Thinking methodology.

Responsibilities

• Establish, govern, and enforce architectural blueprints, integration frameworks, and technology standards across all Medical Affairs digital systems globally.
• Act as the primary solution architect for high-priority enterprise-wide platforms, directly defining and documenting technology solution approaches and component design.
• Partner with four Product Owners and a peer Sr. Director of Engineering to translate business capabilities into buildable, resilient target-state architectures.
• Ensure designs conform to pharmaceutical industry regulations (GxP, HIPAA, GDPR) and internal AI ethics and compliance frameworks.
• Drive data integration and architectural alignment across core enterprise platforms — Veeva CRM, PromoMats, Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud, and Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
• Design and prototype autonomous and semi-autonomous AI agents, multi-agent workflows, and orchestration frameworks for Medical Affairs process automation.
• Architect multi-lingual, regionally compliant AI solutions accounting for divergent regulatory boundaries (e.g., EFPIA in Europe vs. FDA in the US).
• Establish environment strategy, ALM, and CI/CD pipelines for LLM-based solutions; oversee model tuning, RAG pipelines, and vector database management.
• Implement AI telemetry to track model/agent performance, token usage, drift, and latency; design against prompt injection and enforce strict data access controls.
• Embed Responsible AI standards into technical design — hallucination guardrails, bias monitoring, and alignment with global AI regulation.
• Translate complex, abstract technical architecture into value-driven business strategy for VP-level and executive audiences.
• Act as a central, matrixed leader aligning diverse platform teams around a unified architectural vision.
• Build trust-based stakeholder relationships using proof-of-concept evidence and risk-mitigated strategy to overcome skepticism and win alignment on innovative approaches.
• Arbitrate disagreements among solution stakeholders, using negotiation and facilitation to build consensus without sacrificing delivery speed.
• Co-develop business cases for multi-million-dollar technology investments, aligning architectural roadmaps to annual budgeting and strategic planning cycles.
• Conduct ROI and TCO analysis on proposed AI/emerging-tech solutions to justify investment ahead of full-scale deployment.
• Co-lead RFIs, RFPs, and vendor assessments to ensure new software, AI models, and partners fit the broader enterprise architecture.
• Identify and document architectural, data-governance, and compliance risk early in the lifecycle, partnering with risk, security, and quality teams on mitigation.
• Directly manage the UX Designer and Scrum Master — setting objectives, coaching, and owning performance and career growth.
• Establish and lead a technical community of practice across Medical Affairs, championing architectural consistency and modern design standards.
• Foster a culture where UX and agile/scrum methodology are integrated into the solution architecture process rather than bolted on after design.
• Coordinate and govern the architectural output of build engineers and external systems integrators to ensure alignment with technical specifications.

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

What This Job Offers

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