Director & Group Head (AI-Systems & Scale)

Role

Full-time

Permanent

Director

Engineering

Logistics

Basel (City)

Hybrid

CHF 146,300 - 271,700/yr

Closes in 30 days

Requirements

10+ yrs exp

Skills

High-Performance ComputingProtein ModelingAgentic AIPerformance MetricsData ScienceDistributed SystemsPythonMachine learningVersion controlAI-enabled toolsCloud ArchitectureComputational methods

Compensation

CHF 146,300 - 271,700/yr

Description

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.

Responsibilities

Define and lead the multi-year roadmap for scalable AI systems, platforms, and agentic architectures across research.
Lead and scale multidisciplinary teams delivering production-grade AI systems and intelligent applications.
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.
Partner with data, security, and platform teams to ensure governance, compliance, and responsible data usage.
Drive cross-functional collaboration and portfolio management to prioritize high-impact AI system initiatives and reduce duplication.

Requirements

Demonstrated experience leading machine learning capability development initiatives across multiple drug discovery domains and teams.
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.

Tech stack

Agentic AIAI PlatformsAI SystemsComputingData ScienceDeep LearningMachine Learning (ML)Machine Learning OperationsResearchingScience

Benefits

Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion
Accessibility and Accommodation

Company

Novartis

Pharmaceuticals

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.

Contact

inclusion.switzerland@novartis.com