Director & Group Head (AI-Systems & Scale)

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Novartis is unable to offer relocation support: please only apply if accessible.

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You will lead high‑performing engineering teams, define scalable architectures, and ensure AI solutions are robust, governed, and impactful—bringing innovative therapies closer to patients faster. Lead and scale multidisciplinary teams delivering production‑grade AI systems and intelligent applications.

Partner with data, security, and platform teams to ensure governance, compliance, and responsible data usage. Essential Requirements Demonstrated experience leading machine learning capability development initiatives across multiple drug discovery domains and teams.

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion Novartis is committed to building an outstanding, inclusive work environment and diverse teams representative of the patients and communities we serve.

Job Description Summary Job Title: Director & Group Head (AI Systems & Scale) #LI-Hybrid Location: Basel, Switzerland Relocation Support: This role is based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis has embraced a bold strategy to drive a company-wide digital transformation.

Our objective is to position Novartis as an industry leader by proactively adopting digital technologies that foster innovative approaches to hasten drug discovery and development.

By utilizing both internal and external R&D data with the power of data science, predictive models, generative AI, and machine learning, we aim to identify new targets, create more effective therapeutic molecules, better predict drug pharmacokinetics and safety risks, refine clinical trial design, and significantly shorten development cycles.

Step into a leadership role shaping the future of AI at scale, where advanced agentic systems and enterprise AI platforms transform how biomedical research is delivered.

As Director & Group Head (AI-Systems & Scale), you will drive the design and deployment of next‑generation AI systems, enabling scientists to seamlessly leverage data, models, and intelligent workflows to accelerate drug discovery.

Key Responsibilities Define and lead the multi-year roadmap for scalable AI systems, platforms, and agentic architectures across research. Establish reference architectures for agentic systems, including orchestration, retrieval, memory, and human‑in‑the‑loop controls.

Build and standardize enterprise agentic platforms with reusable components, workflows, and evaluation frameworks. Define and enforce machine learning operations and large language model operations standards across AI systems development.

Own agent quality and safety engineering, including guardrails, policy enforcement, and failure detection mechanisms. Drive scalable deployment strategies, ensuring performance, reliability, cost efficiency, and multi‑tenant architecture.

Define performance metrics linking system effectiveness to scientific outcomes, including accuracy, robustness, and efficiency. Drive cross‑functional collaboration and portfolio management to prioritize high‑impact AI system initiatives and reduce duplication.

Strong experience applying machine learning across functional areas such as computational chemistry or protein modeling. Proven expertise in large model training, including high-performance computing, cloud environments, and distributed systems. Deep curiosity and passion for biomedical sciences and therapeutic discovery.

Strong ability to explain complex machine learning concepts clearly to both technical and non‑technical stakeholders. Minimum of 10+ years of experience in innovation, development, deployment, and support of machine learning solutions. Strong coding proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks, with experience using version control systems.

Proven ability to manage complexity, align stakeholders, and deliver results in matrixed environments. Desirable Requirements Experience building enterprise‑scale agentic platforms with orchestration, memory, and retrieval systems. Expertise in machine learning operations and large‑scale model deployment with monitoring and drift detection.

Accessibility and Accommodation Novartis is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to all individuals.

If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the recruitment process, please email inclusion.switzerland@novartis.com and share the nature of your request along with your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message.

Skills Desired Agentic AI AI Platforms AI Systems Computing Data Science Deep Learning Machine Learning (ML) Machine Learning Operations Researching Science #J-18808-Ljbffr