Director, Applied AI

Key Accountabilities / Core Job Responsibilities:

• Serve as a recognized expert on the practical application of AI, setting standards across the company and advising teams and leadership.
• Own and drive Denali’s applied-AI strategy: determine where AI has a role, choose approaches, and set priorities.
• Partner with leaders to identify high-volume, workflow-specific problems beyond individual AI tools.
• Design, prototype, and build AI solutions hands-on, moving from idea to production and working directly with data, models, and workflows.
• Deliver measurable efficiency gains and use results to guide next AI focus areas.
• Present strategy, progress, wins, risks, and tradeoffs to senior leadership to drive investment decisions.
• Work with Legal, Quality, and Regulatory to enable compliant paths to production for safe AI use.
• Drive adoption and establish repeatable methods/playbooks to scale applied AI.

Qualifications / Skills:

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in a technical field (computer science, AI, data science, engineering) or equivalent experience.
• 10+ years building and delivering solutions with applied AI/ML; fluent in Python and hands-on building generative AI/LLM apps (RAG, fine-tuning, agentic workflows) through to production.
• Direct experience in regulated life sciences (pharma/biotech/medical devices), including GxP; familiarity with ISO/IEC 42001 and NIST AI RMF.
• Demonstrated experience driving cross-functional outcomes as a senior individual.

Benefits:

• Competitive total rewards package including 401k, healthcare coverage, ESPP.