Senior Director Engineering Strategy, Front-End Planning, and Engineering Standards

Job Description

Job Description

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at  Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Position Summary
The Senior Director, Engineering Strategy, Front End Planning, and Standards Governance provides enterprise leadership for early-stage capital planning, engineering standards oversight, and long-range technical strategy. This role is responsible for shaping and governing the engineering framework that enables safe, compliant, cost-effective, and sustainable execution of AbbVie’s capital and operational priorities. The Senior Director leads cross-functional collaboration to ensure front end planning is rigorous, engineering standards and SOPs are current and effectively governed, and strategic long-range plans align with business growth, network needs, and operational excellence objectives.

Key Responsibilities:

Front End Planning:

• Lead front end planning activities for capital and strategic projects, ensuring scope definition, feasibility assessment, basis of design development, and risk identification are completed with rigor.
• Partner with business, operations, quality, EHS, validation, supply chain, and finance stakeholders to translate business needs into executable engineering plans.
• Ensure project concepts are evaluated for technical feasibility, cost, schedule, capacity, sustainability, and lifecycle performance.
• Establish and maintain standard methods for front end loading, project definition, and investment justification.

Engineering Standards and SOPs Governance:

• Own governance for engineering standards, specifications, and SOPs across the assigned scope.
• Ensure engineering standards and procedures are current, compliant with regulatory and corporate requirements, and consistently applied across sites and programs.
• Lead periodic review, approval, revision, and retirement of standards and SOPs.
• Promote standardization, operational consistency, and right-first-time execution through clear governance and stakeholder engagement.
• Serve as a subject matter leader for engineering best practices, design standards, and procedural compliance.

Strategic Long Range Planning:

• Develop and maintain long-range engineering plans aligned with AbbVie’s business strategy, manufacturing network strategy, and capital priorities.
• Identify infrastructure, capacity, technology, and utility needs over a multi-year horizon.
• Lead scenario planning, gap analysis, and strategic recommendations to support future site and network requirements.
• Partner with senior leaders to anticipate future investments and enable sustainable business growth.
• Translate long-range planning outputs into actionable roadmaps, governance reviews, and capital planning inputs.

Leadership and Cross-Functional Influence

• Provide strategic leadership to engineering teams and matrixed stakeholders across functions and sites.
• Build strong partnerships with Operations, Quality, EHS, Technical Operations, Procurement, IT, and Finance.
• Drive alignment on priorities, standards, and resource allocation across multiple initiatives.
• Coach and develop team members and ensure strong succession and talent development within the engineering organization.

Compliance, Quality, and Risk Management:

• Ensure all activities are conducted in accordance with AbbVie policies, quality standards, safety expectations, and applicable regulatory requirements.
• Champion a culture of compliance, risk-based decision-making, and proactive issue escalation.
• Support audits, inspections, and internal reviews related to engineering governance and standards.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering required; advanced degree preferred.
• Typically requires 20+ years of progressive engineering experience, including substantial leadership responsibility in capital planning, engineering governance, and strategic planning.
• Demonstrated experience leading front end planning, standards development, and long-range capital or infrastructure strategy in a regulated industry.
• Strong knowledge of engineering systems, project lifecycle management, and cross-functional governance.

Skills and Competencies:

• Strategic thinking and enterprise planning
• Strong governance and policy development experience
• Executive-level communication and influence
• Ability to lead through ambiguity and complexity
• Deep understanding of engineering design, capital project planning, and operational readiness
• Change leadership and stakeholder management
• Strong analytical and decision-making skills

. Key Stakeholders:

This role partners closely with the following stakeholders:

• Engineering Leadership
• Operations / Manufacturing Leadership
• Quality Assurance and Quality Systems Leadership
• Environment, Health, and Safety (EHS) Leadership
• Capital Project Management
• Procurement / Sourcing Leadership
• Regulatory or Compliance stakeholders
• Key Third Party Engineering Companies
• Regulators and Industry Bodies that define Technical Engineering Standards
• Business Development Teams

Job Evaluation Details:

Function: Operations, Engineering
Country of Employment: Global Location, Travel Globally Required

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of thisposting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location,and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick),  medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs. ​

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus,  commission,incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless anduntil paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.  

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US & Puerto Rico applicants seeking a reasonable accommodation, click here to learn more:

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