Executive Director, Head of Agentic Factory

Role Description

This position can be based remotely anywhere in the U.S. (there may be some restrictions based on legal entity). Please note that this role would not provide relocation as a result. The expectation of working hours and travel (domestic and/or international) will be defined by the Hiring Manager. This position may require 10% plus travel.

The Executive Director, Head of Agentic Factory will lead the Agentic Factory responsible for designing, building, deploying, and scaling AI agents and autonomous workflows that transform commercial operations. This role combines AI engineering, product delivery, and platform leadership to establish reusable agentic capabilities, accelerate innovation, and ensure secure, governed, and measurable business impact across the enterprise.

Major Accountabilities

• Lead the vision, strategy, and execution of the enterprise Agentic Factory.
• Build and scale reusable AI agents, orchestration frameworks, and agent development standards.
• Partner with product, engineering, and business leaders to identify and deliver high-value agentic AI use cases.
• Establish engineering best practices for LLMs, agent orchestration, evaluation, observability, security, and governance.
• Drive adoption of reusable tools, accelerators, and reference architectures that reduce time-to-value.
• Lead and develop a high-performing team of AI engineers, platform engineers, and solution architects.
• Measure and continuously improve the performance, reliability, and business value of deployed AI agents.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or advanced degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, or a related field.

Requirements

• 12+ years of progressive experience leading AI engineering, platform engineering, software engineering, or enterprise technology organizations, including 5+ years leading managers or multidisciplinary technical teams.
• Experience scaling AI or data platforms in pharmaceutical, healthcare, life sciences, financial services, or another regulated enterprise.
• Proven record scaling generative AI, agentic AI, ML, automation, or platform products from experimentation to production with measurable adoption, reliability, and business value.
• Strong technical fluency across LLMs, multi-agent orchestration, RAG, vector/graph databases, APIs, cloud platforms, MLOps/LLMOps, DevSecOps, observability, evaluation, access controls, and enterprise integration patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to build reusable engineering standards, reference architectures, accelerators, and developer enablement models that reduce duplication and improve speed-to-value.
• Experience managing portfolio prioritization, operating rhythms, technical debt, budget/resource trade-offs, vendor/partner orchestration, and risk governance for enterprise AI capabilities.
• Executive-level communication and influence, with ability to align Product, Engineering, Architecture, DDIT, security, legal/privacy, compliance, and business leaders around AI factory strategy and delivery.

Benefits

• The salary for this position is expected to range between $225,400.00 and $418,600.00 annual per year.
• The final salary offered is determined based on factors like, but not limited to, relevant skills and experience, and upon joining Novartis will be reviewed periodically.
• Novartis may change the published salary range based on company and market factors.
• Your compensation will include a performance-based cash incentive and, depending on the level of the role, eligibility to be considered for annual equity awards.
• US-based eligible employees will receive a comprehensive benefits package that includes health, life and disability benefits, a 401(k) with company contribution and match, and a variety of other benefits.
• Employees are eligible for a generous time off package including vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves.