Director, AI Platforms – Data & Technology

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Romania, +1 more country.

📋 Description

• Define and advance the strategy for the AI platform in alignment with Parexel's overarching enterprise AI objectives.

• Take ownership of architectural choices for AI-first platforms.

• Ensure reliability, performance, and observability of AI workloads in production environments.

• Establish service-level expectations, perform capacity planning, and create a consumption model that supports internal squads, sponsor pods, and light-track delivery.

• Manage daily operational relationships with AI-specific vendors such as Anthropic and Palantir.

• Monitor vendor performance, contracts, and renewals; act as the primary escalation point for vendor-specific platform issues.

• Collaborate closely with Engineering to ensure platform capabilities align with product delivery requirements.

• Partner with Quality and Compliance teams on validation tooling pipelines and audit preparedness.

• Lead a small, high-trust team of platform engineers, focusing on recruiting and developing senior individual contributors and engineering talent.

• Maintain a technically hands-on leadership culture while fostering team development.

⛳️ Requirements

• Strong technical expertise in cloud-based platform engineering (AWS or Azure), with a preference for experience in AI/ML infrastructure.

• Ability to navigate architectural trade-offs and clearly communicate them as engineering directives.

• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, especially when interacting with engineering, vendor, and business stakeholders.

• A service-oriented mindset, capable of effectively partnering with internal consumers of platform services.

• Comfort working in a regulated environment, with familiarity in life sciences or another GxP-adjacent field.

• Proven experience in Platform Engineering, Data Engineering, or AI/ML infrastructure roles at the Director level is essential.

• Direct experience managing AI platforms in production (including GenAI runtimes, vector databases, agent orchestration, MLOps tooling, and evaluation infrastructure) is critical.

• Familiarity with at least one of the following: Palantir Foundry, enterprise GenAI platforms, or custom assistant infrastructures (e.g., Copilot Studio, Anthropic-based platforms).

• Experience with cloud platforms (AWS or Azure) is preferred.

• Experience navigating shared infrastructure organizations is advantageous.

• Experience in vendor management, including contract terms, performance oversight, and support for commercial negotiations.

• A Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field is required.

🏝️ Benefits

• Competitive base salary.

• Bonus opportunities.

• Car allowance.

• Holiday leave.

• Comprehensive benefits package typical of a leading company in the CRO industry.

• Structured career progression pathway.

• Support for personal development within the role.

• Enhanced industry awareness and understanding.