Tooling Evolution Lead Engineer

Pfizer • New York City, MA

2d • Hybrid

About The Position

Engineering Activation & Tooling is responsible for the tools, access, and onboarding experience that enable engineers across Pfizer’s eight platforms to start delivering from Day One, while ensuring the tools keep pace with new developer and AI capabilities.

The Tooling Evolution Lead is an experienced, principal-level individual contributor who owns the evaluation, industrialisation, and lifecycle of engineering and AI developer tools across the organisation. The role runs a governed intake process for new tools and proofs of concept, scores them against a shared evidence framework, and determines whether they should enter a contained pilot, join the supported core estate, or be retired based on usage data.

The role bridges rapidly evolving developer and AI tooling with a stable, trusted core estate. It partners with the Engineering & AI and Product & Delivery communities of practice, which scout tools and support adoption, and with Tooling Operations, which provides usage and cost telemetry. The role’s evaluation results inform the self-service onboarding portal used by engineers and PMs across all eight platforms, and its evidence framework supports defensible tool-selection decisions.

The position owns the end-to-end tool intake and evaluation lifecycle, the evaluation framework, and the pathway for industrialising successful pilots—including a fast-track lane for tools accessed through an already-governed gateway. It maintains a live portfolio view of tools in flight and leads evidence-based retirement and rationalisation decisions, including migration paths for phased-out tools. It also owns the adoption and value-realisation story for tools that pass evaluation and serves as a technical and governance authority for consistent maturity-tier execution across the organisation.

This role works with cross-functional teams in different time zones and requires minimal travel of 20–25%. The position is hybrid and requires working from an assigned Pfizer office two to three days per week, or as needed by the business. Candidates must be authorised to work in the United States by any employer; U.S. work visa sponsorship is not available now or in the future.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
• At least 8 years of professional experience in software engineering, platform or developer-tooling product management, or a closely related technical field, including direct ownership of a tooling, platform, or developer-experience roadmap.
• Demonstrated experience evaluating, selecting, or governing engineering tools or SaaS platforms at enterprise level, balancing technical fit, cost, security, and developer experience.
• Hands-on experience evaluating or rolling out AI-assisted development tools, such as GitHub Copilot or agentic coding assistants, within the last 12–18 months.
• Technical fluency across CI/CD, IDEs, SaaS integration patterns, and cloud-native architectures sufficient to conduct credible evaluations with engineers and vendors.
• Experience translating enterprise governance, security, or compliance requirements into a process engineers will follow.
• Proven ability to influence and align stakeholders across a large, matrixed organisation without formal authority, including platform owners, security and compliance teams, and community or guild leads.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate evidence-based cases to engineers and senior stakeholders.
• Permanent work authorisation in the United States; the role does not offer U.S. work visa sponsorship.
• Ability to work from the assigned Pfizer office two to three days per week, or as needed by the business.
• Ability to work with cross-functional teams in different time zones and undertake minimal travel of 20–25%.

Nice To Haves

• Prior experience in a large, regulated enterprise, such as pharmaceutical, healthcare, financial services, or aerospace.
• Experience running a portfolio-management or tool-rationalisation process, including retiring or deprecating tools based on usage evidence.
• Experience with Model Context Protocol (MCP) or similar emerging AI-tooling integration standards.
• Experience partnering with communities of practice, guilds, or developer-relations functions as an intake or adoption channel.
• Experience designing or applying a multidimensional evaluation or scoring framework for technology or vendor decisions.
• Familiarity with SaaS license administration, chargeback or showback models, or consumption-based cost telemetry.
• A track record of taking a proof of concept through to a fully industrialised, enterprise-supported capability.

Responsibilities

• Own and run the governed tool-intake and evaluation lifecycle, from proposal through to an evidence-based decision: available, pilot, declining, or rejected.
• Define and evolve the evaluation framework and its criteria as new developer and AI tool categories emerge.
• Build and run the industrialisation pathway for moving successful pilots into the supported, published core estate, including a fast-track lane for tools accessed through an already-governed gateway.
• Maintain a live portfolio-level view of tools across piloting, scaling, steady-state, and declining stages.
• Partner with the Engineering & AI Guild and Product & Delivery Guild on tool intake and adoption, while retaining ownership of evaluation decisions.
• Work with Tooling Operations to use usage, cost, and license telemetry to inform retirement and rationalisation decisions, including migration paths for tools being phased out.
• Own the adoption and value-realisation story for tools that pass evaluation, demonstrating that they deliver their intended value.
• Serve as the technical and governance authority for tool maturity tiers displayed in the onboarding portal and used consistently by platform owners.
• Influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, and guide colleagues’ work to achieve meaningful outcomes and business impact.
• Work with cross-functional teams in different time zones and travel approximately 20–25%.

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
• Medical, prescription drug, dental, and vision coverage
• Eligibility to participate in Pfizer’s Global Performance Plan, with a bonus target of 20% of base salary
• Eligibility to participate in Pfizer’s share-based long-term incentive program
• Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility

What This Job Offers

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