Director, Solution Engineering

ROLE SUMMARY

At Pfizer we make medicines and vaccines that change patients' lives with a global reach of over 780 million patients. 

Pfizer Digital is the organization charged with winning the digital race in the pharmaceutical industry.  We apply our expertise in technology, innovation and our business to support Pfizer in this mission.

The Biopharma, Patient & CDI (C4) team builds and maintains the platforms and capabilities that enable Pfizer Business Units to connect digitally with our external customers and effectively engage and collaborate across teams internally.  This includes all digital (web, mobile, omni-channel, & devices) products, platforms, services, and experiences in service of patients, HCPs, payors, pharmacists, or clinical sites. We build advanced cloud-based technology solutions at a global scale that positively impact Pfizer business performance.

Patient and Marketplace Corp. Affairs:  Within C4, the Patient and Marketplace Corp. Affairs team is accountable for delivering patient-facing digital companions and external marketplace solutions to increase customer value and simplify specialty pharma services to ensure patients can acquire Pfizer breakthroughs.​

Corp. Affairs team plays a key role in the delivery of Generative AI (GenAI). Your responsibilities include leading a team responsible for developing and delivering cutting-edge solutions leveraging GenAI technologies. This role is critical in driving the organization's strategic vision and roadmap for GenAI-powered products and services. The successful candidate will possess a deep understanding of GenAI capabilities, including large language models, generative models, and their applications.

The Solutions Engineer is a senior technical leadership role responsible for innovation and original ideas in designing and overseeing the implementation of multiple complex cutting-edge technical solutions across global business units. This role is crucial to Pfizer's pursuit of breakthroughs by architecting robust and future-proof solutions that enable captivating digital experiences, driving patient engagement, knowledge sharing, and commercial success.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES 

Subject Matter Expertise - General

• Innovate and architect technical solutions that address stakeholder needs while adhering to best practices, industry standards, and Pfizer's technology strategies.
• Oversee the implementation of digital solutions by development teams, ensuring adherence to the defined technical architecture and design principles.
• Develop detailed technical specifications, system architectures, and implementation plans for immersive solutions.
• Provide vision, shape and influence technology strategy and build digital innovation roadmaps for GenAI solutions.
• Ensure optimized application performance, security, and reliability through continuous testing, monitoring, and optimization.
• Develop learning pathways for team members to stay up-to-date with the latest AI engineering industry trends, technologies, and best practices, and foster a culture of regular knowledge-sharing.
• Ensure compliance with relevant regulations, security protocols, and industry best practices related to solution development and deployment.

Strategic Leadership & Delivery

• Promotes innovation and take risk-based approach to challenge the status quo, resulting in enhanced processes.
• Take appropriate risks to develop innovative ideas/ processes/products for evaluation and recommendation of appropriate technologies, platforms, and frameworks, considering factors such as scalability, performance, security, and integration with existing systems.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest advancements in technologies, industry trends, and best practices, and drive the adoption of new solutions and strategies.
• Contribute to the development of technical strategies, roadmaps, and governance frameworks for digital solutions, ensuring alignment with Pfizer's overall technology strategies and industry best practices.

Resource and Financial Management

• Manages and leads people, technological and financial resources within the Global Business Unit; manage resources outside of direct authority

Cross- Team Collaboration

• Collaborate with the Delivery Lead, Service Owners, stakeholders, and development teams to gather and analyze business requirements.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including the Technical Services Leads and Platform teams, to ensure seamless integration and support for solutions with Pfizer's digital platforms and technologies.
• Leverage a variety of communication tools and techniques to communicate across Global Business Unit 
• Influence senior management decisionsthat impact business direction

Coaching and Mentorship

• Actively shares knowledge across Global Business Unit - Provide technical guidance and mentorship to the development team, sharing expertise in technologies, solution design, and emerging trends.
• Establishes systems to share knowledge across the Division or Global Business Unit

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS 

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related technical field. 
• 10+ years of extensive experience in software application development with a focus on solution architecture, technical design, and implementation of complex software systems for a diverse range of projects.
• Strong software engineering skills and experience in designing, building, and deploying scalable and reliable AI-powered applications.
• Deep understanding of software development technologies, platforms, and frameworks, along with their strengths, limitations, and integration capabilities.
• Deep understanding of large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3, GPT-4, Claude and their underlying architectures.
• Familiarity with AI development tools and libraries for data preprocessing, model training, and evaluation.
• Knowledge of cloud platforms and services for AI/ML workloads, such as AWS.
• Familiarity with agile methodologies (Scrum, Kanban), continuous integration, continuous deployment (CI/CD) processes and JIRA/Confluence.
• Passion for exploring emerging technologies and driving innovation in the field of Generative AI / LLM.
• Strong proficiency in programming languages, development tools, and software engineering practices relevant to the full software development lifecycle.
• Strong skills in data engineering and data scraping.
• Excellent problem-solving, analytical, and decision-making skills, with the ability to navigate complex technical challenges and trade-offs.
• Strong communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to effectively convey technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
• Experience in leading and mentoring technical teams, fostering knowledge sharing, and driving continuous improvement.
• Strong attention to detail and commitment to delivering high-quality, robust, and scalable technical solutions.
• Familiar with managing production services using Containerization in cloud and non-cloud environments.
• Proficient understanding of code versioning tools such as Git.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Advanced degree or relevant certifications.
• Preferred experience in the Pharma industry.
• Experience in a global organization with demonstrated career development and coaching expertise, including performance management, succession planning and new hire planning.
• Experience/ Technical Skills
• Experience building GenAI solutions.
• Experience developing data and analytics products for use by technical and non-technical audiences.
• Expertise in handling and preprocessing large-scale, unstructured data.
• Familiarity with popular AI/ML frameworks and AI model deployment.
• Background as a full-stack developer extending from data engineering with tools like Python, SQL to back-end programming languages like .NET, Java, Laravel, Python and modern front-end technologies such as HTML 5, React, Vue, Selenium.
• Experience working with various types of data (structured / unstructured).
• High proficiency and proven successful delivery of experiences using Agile development, especially scaled agile and lean techniques and methodologies (Disciplined Agile, SAFe, etc.)

Work Location Assignment: Hybrid