Executive Director, Head of Agentic Factory - Remote

Summary

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.

About the Role

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.

Education:

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

Required experience and skill set:

• 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.

Preferred experience and skill set:

• Experience with commercial operations, customer engagement, omnichannel, field enablement, content, analytics, or other high-value commercial use cases.

• Familiarity with Microsoft Azure AI Foundry/OpenAI, Semantic Kernel, Copilot Studio, LangChain / LangGraph , MCP/A2A, telemetry, prompt/model security testing, and AI ROI measurement.

• Track record attracting, developing, and retaining scarce AI engineering, architecture, product, and platform talent.

• Delivery of agreed product, platform, program, strategy, AI, or knowledge-engineering milestones within planned timelines.

• Stakeholder satisfaction, user adoption, business outcomes, and measurable value realization for assigned capabilities.

• Quality and completeness of strategy, roadmap, governance, delivery, technical, and executive reporting artifacts.

• Alignment with enterprise architecture, Responsible AI, data governance, security, accessibility, and applicable regulatory requirements.

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. In addition, employees are eligible for a generous time off package including vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves.

Why Novartis: Helping people with disease and their families takes more than innovative science. It takes a community of smart, passionate people like you. Collaborating, supporting and inspiring each other. Combining to achieve breakthroughs that change patients’ lives. Ready to create a brighter future together?

Benefits and Rewards: Learn about all the ways we’ll help you thrive personally and professionally.
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EEO Statement:

The Novartis Group of Companies are Equal Opportunity Employers. We do not discriminate in recruitment, hiring, training, promotion or other employment practices for reasons of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital or veteran status, disability, or any other legally protected status.

Accessibility & Reasonable Accommodations

The Novartis Group of Companies are committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with disabilities. If, because of a medical condition or disability, you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the application process, or to perform the essential functions of a position, please send an e-mail to [email protected] or call View phone number on us.fitly.work and let us know the nature of your request and your contact information. Please include the job requisition number in your message.