Healthcare Sector Data & AI Architect Lead

Work Your Magic with us!  

Ready to explore, break barriers, and discover more? We know you’ve got big plans – so do we! Our colleagues across the globe love innovating with science and technology to enrich people’s lives with our solutions in Healthcare, Life Science, and Electronics. Together, we dream big and are passionate about caring for our rich mix of people, customers, patients, and planet. That's why we are always looking for curious minds that see themselves imagining the unimaginable with us.

United As One for Patients, our purpose in Healthcare is to help create, improve and prolong lives. We develop medicines, intelligent devices and innovative technologies in therapeutic areas such as Oncology, Neurology and Fertility. Our teams work together across 6 continents with passion and relentless curiosity in order to help patients at every stage of life. Joining our Healthcare team is becoming part of a diverse, inclusive and flexible working culture, presenting great opportunities for personal development and career advancement across the globe.

Your Role: as the Healthcare sector Data & AI (D&AI) architecture lead, you will shape D&AI across the entire value chain—R&D, manufacturing & supply chain, marketing & sales.

In this role, you will set the Healthcare target architecture, govern architecture decisions and controlled exceptions, closely partnering with business functions that remain accountable for their D&AI portfolio.

You will lead a team of architects and a federated architecture community, serving as the principal architecture interface to the central Merck D&AI organization, turning Healthcare needs into platform requirements and standards - into adoption.

You will own the sector target architecture and capability map, including the positioning and integration of D&AI platforms and technology components, as well as emerging agentic capabilities.

You will manage the architecture review process, govern decisions and controlled exceptions in line with EA principles, security, privacy, GxP and responsible AI requirements.

You will assess platform and capability fit, run proofs of value that turn innovation into governed capabilities, challenge duplication and unnecessary complexity, guide recommendations for the architecture board.Responsibilities include maintaining reference architectures, decision records, blueprints, integration patterns, roadmaps and reusable generative and agentic AI patterns, and making them accessible through clear documentation, enablement, coaching and architecture community forums.

You will lead architecture value management by defining guardrails, monitoring adoption and cost, identifying optimization and decommissioning opportunities, and ensuring that self-service and spoke capabilities remain scalable, supportable and financially sustainable.

Who You Are:

• You have a bachelor's or master's degree in computer science, data science, engineering, information technology or a related field, or equivalent experience, and at least 10 years in enterprise, solution, data or cloud architecture.
• Proficient with the core technology stack: AWS, Snowflake, Palantir Foundry (or comparable platforms), dbt, Airflow, Fivetran, App service, AI gateways, agent orchestration and RAG tooling.
• You have track record in design of generative and agentic AI solutions, from model and gateway selection, RAG, agent orchestration and MCP integration to identity, human oversight, evaluation, observability prompt and model lifecycle, agent registration and marketplace patterns.
• Experience in defining target architectures, capability maps, reference patterns, architecture reviews, decision records and controlled exceptions.
• Practical expertize in regulated healthcare or life sciences environment, including data privacy, cybersecurity, auditability, GxP-relevant controls and AI governance.
• You have led across a federated organization, aligning teams and senior stakeholders while preserving delivery ownership and turning technical trade-offs into clear decisions.
• Navigate with ease across strategic, governance and technical levels, from target-state design and executive decisions to detailed review of integration, identity, data and operational patterns.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and mentor architects and engineers, build communities of practice, and drive adoption through standards, coaching and reusable assets.
• Experience with FinOps, cost transparency, self-service guardrails and applying AI to architecture work is an advantage, as are relevant architecture, cloud, data or AI certifications such as TOGAF, AWS Solutions Architect or SnowPro.

What we offer: We are curious minds that come from a broad range of backgrounds, perspectives, and life experiences. We believe that this variety drives excellence and innovation, strengthening our ability to lead in science and technology. We are committed to creating access and opportunities for all to develop and grow at your own pace. Join us in building a culture of inclusion and belonging that impacts millions and empowers everyone to work their magic and champion human progress!

Apply now and become a part of a team that is dedicated to Sparking Discovery and Elevating Humanity!