Director & Group Head (AI-Systems & Scale)

Novartis Pharma Schweiz AG seeks a Director & Group Head for AI-Systems & Scale in Basel. The role leads engineering teams to design and deploy advanced AI systems that accelerate biomedical research and drug discovery.

This position is responsible for shaping the future of artificial intelligence at scale within the organization. The role focuses on transforming biomedical research delivery through advanced agentic systems and enterprise AI platforms. The incumbent will drive the design and deployment of next-generation AI systems, enabling scientists to leverage data, models, and intelligent workflows to accelerate drug discovery. Additionally, the role leads high-performing engineering teams, defines scalable architectures, and ensures AI solutions are robust, governed, and impactful to bring innovative therapies closer to patients faster.

Responsibilities

• Define and lead the multi-year roadmap for scalable AI systems, platforms, and agentic architectures across research.
• Lead and scale multidisciplinary teams delivering production-grade AI systems and intelligent applications.
• Establish reference architectures for agentic systems, including orchestration, retrieval, memory, and human-in-the-loop controls.
• Build and standardize enterprise agentic platforms with reusable components, workflows, and evaluation frameworks.
• Define and enforce machine learning operations and large language model operations standards across AI systems development.
• Own agent quality and safety engineering, including guardrails, policy enforcement, and failure detection mechanisms.
• Drive scalable deployment strategies, ensuring performance, reliability, cost efficiency, and multi-tenant architecture.
• Define performance metrics linking system effectiveness to scientific outcomes, including accuracy, robustness, and efficiency.
• Partner with data, security, and platform teams to ensure governance, compliance, and responsible data usage.
• Drive cross-functional collaboration and portfolio management to prioritize high-impact AI system initiatives and reduce duplication.

Requirements

• Demonstrated experience leading machine learning capability development initiatives across multiple drug discovery domains and teams.
• Strong experience applying machine learning across functional areas such as computational chemistry or protein modeling.
• Proven expertise in large model training, including high-performance computing, cloud environments, and distributed systems.
• Deep curiosity and passion for biomedical sciences and therapeutic discovery.
• Strong ability to explain complex machine learning concepts clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Minimum of 10+ years of experience in innovation, development, deployment, and support of machine learning solutions.
• Strong coding proficiency in Python and deep learning frameworks, with experience using version control systems.
• Proven ability to manage complexity, align stakeholders, and deliver results in matrixed environments.

Nice to have

• Experience building enterprise-scale agentic platforms with orchestration, memory, and retrieval systems.
• Expertise in machine learning operations and large-scale model deployment with monitoring and drift detection.