Executive Director, Digital Product Management – Research

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in California.

📋 Description

• Act as the principal digital technology leader for Research.

• Convert Research strategy and portfolio priorities into a comprehensive technology, data, and AI agenda.

• Enhance scientific discovery, elevate the quality and reuse of scientific data, and establish a lasting competitive edge in medicine discovery.

• Participate in the Research Leadership Team as a strategic advisor and decision-maker.

• Influence technology investment priorities from disease comprehension and target selection to molecule design, synthesis, and translational safety.

• Oversee the Research technology environment, including the benchtop environment, electronic lab notebooks, scientific workflows, data products, and platforms.

• Develop and refine the multi-year Research Technology, Data & AI strategy.

• Connect capability investments to the Research portfolio, scientific priorities, and measurable outcomes.

• Manage portfolio prioritization and investment recommendations.

• Establish OKRs and value metrics; reallocate investments, phase out low-value solutions, and scale effective ones.

• Supervise benchtop and instrument-adjacent technology, electronic lab notebooks, LIMS, and integrated scientific workflows.

• Deliver dependable, scalable products that enhance scientific workflows and demonstrate measurable value.

• Modernize and integrate scientific data workflows from source capture through analysis, reuse, and decision-making.

• Create governed, reusable data products that link experiments, observations, models, and knowledge across Research.

• Promote digital capabilities across disease understanding, target selection, small molecule discovery, large molecule discovery, DNA-encoded libraries, and antibody-drug conjugates.

• Ensure that platforms and workflows are designed with scientists' needs in mind and continually enhance the user experience.

• Lead and cultivate an organization encompassing research informatics, laboratory and benchtop technology, digital products, and scientific data enablement.

• Forge partnerships with Research leaders, Technology, AI & Data organizations, and external collaborators.

• Manage platform rationalization, make build-versus-buy decisions, and address technical debt.

• Set benchmarks for product and delivery excellence, architecture, vendor management, operations, adoption, lifecycle management, and realized value.

• Communicate strategy, investment decisions, performance, risks, and opportunities to executive audiences.

⛳️ Requirements

• Doctorate degree with 6 years of technology experience OR Master's degree with 10 years of technology experience OR Bachelor's degree with 12 years of technology experience.

• 6 years of managerial experience with direct oversight of people and/or leadership experience guiding teams, projects, programs, or resource allocation.

• Preferred 5+ years of progressive leadership experience, including direct management of senior leaders and/or significant multi-disciplinary organizations.

• Proven experience in leading technology, data, digital, informatics, or computational capabilities in a research-intensive life sciences environment.

• Established scientific credibility and the ability to gain the trust of scientists.

• Knowledge of the drug discovery research lifecycle across pertinent disciplines such as small molecules, biologics, DELs, ADCs, disease biology, or translational science.

• Demonstrated experience in setting multi-year strategy and spearheading enterprise-scale changes in laboratory technology, scientific software, data platforms, scientific workflows, or research informatics.

• Proven track record in creating and scaling scientific data products, implementing FAIR data practices, managing metadata and terminology capabilities, and developing integrated data-to-insight workflows.

• Strong technology and data judgement across cloud platforms, architecture, laboratory systems, data engineering, analytics, and vendor ecosystems.

• Ability to influence senior executives, navigate consequential cross-functional trade-offs, and foster alignment without relying solely on formal authority.

• Exceptional executive communication and storytelling abilities.

• Experience in biotechnology, pharmaceutical research, or other highly regulated, technology-intensive environments is strongly preferred.

🏝️ Benefits

• Comprehensive employee benefits package, including a Retirement and Savings Plan with generous company contributions.

• Group medical, dental, and vision coverage.

• Life and disability insurance.

• Flexible spending accounts.

• A discretionary annual bonus program.

• Stock-based long-term incentives.

• Award-winning time-off plans.

• Bi-annual company-wide shutdowns.

• Flexible work models where applicable.

• Career development opportunities.

• Strong focus on work/life balance.