Director, AI Platforms - Data & Technology

Job description

When our values align, there's no limit to what we can achieve. At Parexel, we all share the same goal - to improve the world's health. From clinical trials to regulatory, consulting, and market access, every clinical development solution we provide is underpinned by something special - a deep conviction in what we do. Each of us, no matter what we do at Parexel, contributes to the development of a therapy that ultimately will benefit a patient. We take our work personally, we do it with empathy and we're committed to making a difference. Parexel is in the business of improving the world’s health. We do this by providing a suite of biopharmaceutical services that help clients across the globe transform scientific discoveries into new treatments. We believe in our values, Patients First, Quality, Respect, Empowerment & Accountability. This role will work within our innovative Data & Technology group that continues to evolve to meet business needs, fuel Parexel's growth and enable improved support for stakeholders, including customers and ultimately patients, who will benefit from Parexel's integrated processes and systems. This role can be based in Poland or Romania and can be fully home based and remote working anywhere in either of these two locations only. As the Director, AI Platforms you will lead the engineering team responsible for the shared technical foundation that powers AI delivery across Parexel. This role will own the AI-specific platform stack — including environment management, infrastructure, and orchestration — and ensures these platforms are reliable, scalable, and consumable by internal product teams, sponsor-funded delivery pods, and citizen developers. You will partner closely with Engineering, AI Solution Direction, Quality, and the centralized Infrastructure organization to deliver platform services that accelerate AI product development without creating fragmentation. This is a hands-on, working-leader role that will own and shape AI infrastructure at enterprise scale. We are looking for an experienced platform engineering leader who combines deep technical expertise with a service-oriented mindset. You will think about platforms as products — built for the engineers and developers who consume them, with clear interfaces, dependable performance, and consumption models that scale. You will be comfortable making architectural decisions, partnering with vendors, and balancing the demands of multiple internal customers. You will bring credibility from having built and operated AI or data platforms in production, and you know how to work in a regulated environment without letting compliance become an obstacle to delivery. Key Accountabilities : Platform Strategy & Architecture Define and evolve the AI platform strategy in alignment with Parexel's enterprise AI direction. Own architectural decisions for AI-first platforms. Platform Operations & Reliability Ensure platform reliability, performance, and observability for AI workloads in production. Establish service-level expectations, capacity planning, and a consumption model that supports internal squads, sponsor pods, and light-track delivery. Vendor & Foundation Model Operations Manage day-to-day operational relationships with AI-specific vendors (Anthropic, Palantir, and others). Track vendor performance, contracts, and renewals; serve as the first escalation point for vendor-specific platform issues. Cross-Functional Partnership Work closely with Engineering to ensure platform capabilities meet the needs of product delivery. Partner with Quality and Compliance on validation tooling pipelines and audit readiness. Team Leadership Lead a small, high-trust team of platform engineers; recruit and develop talent at the senior IC and engineering levels. Foster a working-leader culture where the Director remains technically hands-on while developing the team. Skills: Strong technical depth in cloud-based platform engineering (AWS or Azure), with experience in AI/ML infrastructure preferred. Ability to make architectural trade-offs and translate them into clear engineering direction. Excellent written and verbal communication skills, particularly with engineering, vendor, and business stakeholders. Service-oriented mindset; able to partner effectively with internal consumers of platform services. Comfortable in a regulated environment with familiarity in life sciences or another GxP-adjacent industry. Knowledge and Experience: Strong demonstrable experience in Platform Engineering, Data Engineering, or AI/ML infrastructure roles already operating at Director level is essential. Direct advanced level experience operating AI platforms in production (GenAI runtimes, vector databases, agent orchestration, MLOps tooling, evaluation infrastructure) is essential. Familiarity with at least one of: Palantir Foundry, enterprise GenAI platforms, custom assistant infrastructure (e.g., Copilot Studio, Anthropic-based platforms). Experience working with cloud platforms (AWS or Azure) preferred; experience navigating shared infrastructure organizations a plus. Vendor management experience including contract terms, performance management, and commercial negotiation support. Education & Certifications Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field required. Master's degree in a technical discipline is preferred. In return we will be able to offer you a structured career pathway and encouragement to develop within the role including awareness and understanding of the industry. You will be well supported and in return for your hard work you will be rewarded with a competitive base salary, bonus, car allowance and holiday as well as other leading benefits you would expect with a top company in the CRO Industry. Apply today to begin your Parexel journey! #LI-LG2