Stellenangebot: Head of AI Architecture for DDIT R&D (all genders) bei Merck KGaA

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

You will shape the architectural direction of agentic AI across global Healthcare Research and Development, leading a team of AI architects who design and deliver solutions spanning from early drug discovery through to regulatory submissions. In this role, you will establish cross-R&D AI architecture principles, best practices, and reusable technical patterns that enable teams to build scalable, reliable, and high-quality agentic AI applications.

Your team also encompasses colleagues who architect and build the shared agentic AI platform that forms a core part of the overall agentic AI architecture. You will align platform and solution architecture, define clear interfaces and guardrails, and ensure that reusable platform capabilities meet the needs of application teams.

You will provide technical and people leadership, develop talent, prioritize the team's portfolio, and guide selected strategic initiatives from concept through to adoption. The role requires close partnership with business leaders, the headquarters based IT team, cross-R&D architecture groups, and data and AI development teams across the US, Europe and India, ensuring effective stakeholder communication, delivery coordination, and measurable value for internal customers.

Who You Are

• Master's degree or Ph.D. in Mathematics, Physics, Computer Science, or a related field.
• Professional experience in the healthcare industry, ideally within Research and Development environments.
• In-depth knowledge of Generative AI, including agentic AI architectures, orchestration patterns, evaluation approaches, and platform design.
• Demonstrated experience defining technology architecture (in particular based on cloud technologies like AWS and Snowflake), standards, and reusable technical patterns.
• Proven leadership experience building, guiding and developing teams of AI architects and platform engineers.
• Strong ability to translate business priorities into a coherent AI architecture roadmap and a prioritized, outcome driven portfolio.
• Hands-on technical depth in Python and modern AI engineering sufficient to guide architectural decisions and constructively challenge implementation approaches.
• Excellent communication and influencing skills in English, with the ability to engage and align senior business and technology stakeholders across international, virtual, and multidisciplinary teams.

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!