Associate Director Data Science & AI
The posting explicitly references exposure to and use of vibe coding and modern productivity accelerators.
About the Role
Lead the design, development, and enterprise-scale deployment of advanced AI and Generative AI solutions across People & Organization and Corporate Functions at Novartis, focusing on agentic and knowledge-augmented systems. Drive measurable business value, enterprise adoption, and team development while ensuring scalable MLOps, governance, and cross-functional alignment.
Job Description
Role
The Associate Director, Data Science & AI will lead the end-to-end design, development, and enterprise-scale deployment of advanced AI and Generative AI solutions across P&O and Corporate Functions. The role emphasizes building agentic and knowledge-augmented systems, translating ambiguous problems into clear AI solutions that deliver measurable business value, and driving broad enterprise adoption.
Key Responsibilities
- Lead problem framing, PoV execution, experimentation, model design, reusable asset creation, industrialization, and production deployment of enterprise AI/GenAI solutions.
- Architect agentic AI ecosystems (multi-actor orchestration frameworks, Agentic RAG systems, hybrid retrieval architectures, multimodal AI systems) and interoperable AI agents using MCP or A2A standards.
- Build knowledge-augmented generation systems using graph-based approaches and Neo4j.
- Ensure alignment with enterprise data governance, lifecycle management, data quality, lineage, and AI compliance frameworks.
- Apply statistical, ML, and algorithmic approaches to generate actionable insights and automation to drive efficiency at scale.
- Translate analytical output into clear storytelling and visualizations for senior leaders and non-technical stakeholders.
- Apply engineering practices including Python development, modular coding, version control, CI/CD, MLOps, model monitoring, and observability.
- Partner with business leaders, architects, data teams, and technology stakeholders to align AI roadmaps with strategic priorities.
- Plan resources, manage risks, set stakeholder expectations, and drive operational excellence in large-scale AI programs.
- Define and track KPIs, adoption metrics, governance endorsements, and measurable business value for deployed AI systems.
- Mentor and develop data scientists and engineers through hands-on guidance, reviews, and career support.
Requirements
Essential
- Minimum 10 years of experience in Data Science, AI, or Applied Machine Learning, with at least 3 years in Generative AI and LLM-based solutions.
- Proven success leading enterprise-scale AI programs with measurable outcomes.
- Expertise in LangGraph (and other agent orchestration frameworks), LangChain, Llama Index, Agentic RAG, graph-based AI, Neo4j, Azure AI, AWS, and Databricks.
- Strong Python programming skills and deep learning expertise using PyTorch or TensorFlow.
- Experience with statistical analysis, ML algorithms, traditional ML workflows, and optimization.
- Familiarity with big data ecosystems such as Apache Spark.
- Strong experience in MLOps, CI/CD, model monitoring, and AI observability.
- Exposure to vibe coding and modern productivity accelerators.
Desirable
- Strategic thinking with enterprise architecture and technical leadership capability.
- Creative and unconventional problem solving; excellence in cross-functional collaboration and stakeholder management.
- Responsible AI and ethics orientation; strong visualization and storytelling skills.
Location & Working Mode
- Location: Hyderabad, India. Role listed as Hybrid (#LI Hybrid). Office site: Hyderabad (Office).
Benefits & Inclusion
- Benefits and rewards described in the Novartis Life Handbook (link provided in the original posting).
- Commitment to diversity and inclusion and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities.