Associate Director, Automation Lead

Job Description **The Opportunity** * Based in Hyderabad, join a global healthcare biopharma company and be part of a 130\- year legacy of success backed by ethical integrity, forward momentum, and an inspiring mission to achieve new milestones in global healthcare. * Be part of an organisation driven by digital technology and data\-backed approaches that support a diversified portfolio of prescription medicines, vaccines, and animal health products. * Drive innovation and execution excellence. Be a part of a team with passion for using data, analytics, and insights to drive decision\-making, and which creates custom software, allowing us to tackle some of the world's greatest health threats. Our Technology Centers focus on creating a space where teams can come together to deliver business solutions that save and improve lives. An integral part of our companys’ IT operating model, Tech Centers are globally distributed locations where each IT division has employees to enable our digital transformation journey and drive business outcomes. These locations, in addition to the other sites, are essential to supporting our business and strategy. A focused group of leaders in each Tech Center helps to ensure we can manage and improve each location, from investing in growth, success, and well\-being of our people, to making sure colleagues from each IT division feel a sense of belonging to managing critical emergencies. And together, we must leverage the strength of our team to collaborate globally to optimize connections and share best practices across the Tech Centers. **Role Overview** The Associate Director leads the Enterprise Architecture AI/ML and automation function, driving strategy, execution, and delivery of scalable, business\-critical solutions. This role provides strong technical and people leadership, overseeing complex initiatives while ensuring alignment with enterprise priorities and standards. The individual is responsible for building and mentoring high\-performing teams, fostering a culture of engineering excellence, innovation, and collaboration. They partner closely with senior stakeholders to translate business strategy into impactful technology outcomes, ensuring high quality, compliance, and continuous improvement across all deliverables. **What will you do in this role** * Design, build, and maintain tools, content, and capabilities for the Enterprise Architecture organization * Develop complex technical architectures for automation solutions, ensuring designs are scalable, secure, maintainable, and aligned with business and enterprise technology standards * Lead significant development work streams as a senior technical contributor who helps uplift engineering maturity through guidance and knowledge sharing * Organize and coordinate a team of engineers providing clear direction, prioritization, and coordination to ensure successful delivery with high\-quality standards, timeliness, compliance, and excellent user experience * Work closely with customers, stakeholders. and SMEs to define requirements and translate them into production\-ready solutions * Work effectively in ambiguous situations within the work group or project team, explaining difficult issues and building alignment around complex situations * Communicate findings, risks, and trade\-offs clearly to influence decisions within your scope * Actively participate in Agile ceremonies and support planning of technical work * Provide input into technical prioritization and roadmap discussions **What you should have** **Primary Skills:**Python programming, AI, SDLC, Agile, Automation **Secondary:**AWS Bachelor's or master's degree in information technology, Computer Science or related field. 12\+ years SDLC experience, with Python programming and Leadership. * Strong Python skills and experience building modern AI/ML pipelines * Excellent communication skills with the ability to translate technical concepts for diverse audiences * Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively and contribute to technical direction within a team * Strong analytical and problem‑solving skills; comfortable working in complex, evolving environments * Proven track record of contributing to complex, production\-grade systems as an senior individual contributor or technical lead * Strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, with the ability to influence and motivate others; excellent emotional intelligence, decision\-making skills, and a strong sense of ownership and accountability; networking and partnerships should be a key strength Software Engineering * Proven experience leading technical teams in an automation or engineering environment, with a demonstrated ability to guide, mentor, and coordinate cross\-functional engineers to deliver high\-quality solutions on time. * Experience with successful delivery of engineering projects from concept through implementation, with a track record of managing scope, timelines, resources, and stakeholders to achieve business and technical objectives. * Solid experience designing, implementing, and scaling solutions with data pipelines, databases, APIs, and modern engineering tooling spanning on\-premises, cloud, hybrid, and multi\-cloud environments * Ability to develop and construct complex automations that integrate with existing systems and business processes * Expertise building software within a Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) process * Knowledge of software engineering best practices and methodologies * Experience with AWS or other cloud providers * Work experience in Agile environments * Experience with containerization (Docker) and orchestration tools Generative AI * Experience with prompt optimization or evaluation frameworks to produce accurate responses from generative AI models and tools * Hands\-on experience with RAG systems, LLMs, vector databases, and generative AI applications Our technology teams operate as business partners, proposing ideas and innovative solutions that enable new organizational capabilities. We collaborate internationally to deliver services and solutions that help everyone be more productive and enable innovation. **Who we are** We are known as Merck \& Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been inventing , bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world. **What we look for** Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among…