Director, AI Engineering
San Diego, CA - USA
Job Summary
Position Summary
Primary Responsibilities
- Architect and maintain the enterprise agent platform - the system through which agents are developed published versioned and coordinated using frameworks such as LangGraph CrewAI Anthropic Agents SDK and OpenAI Agents SDK.
- Engineer multi-agent coordination patterns enabling agents with distinct roles data access and functional scope to collaborate reliably on complex multi-step business workflows.
- Design and implement reusable agent templates composable orchestration primitives and agentic memory systems (short-term long-term episodic) that development teams and non-engineers can configure and deploy.
- Build human-in-the-loop (HITL) escalation workflows and clearly defined agent action boundaries to ensure appropriate human oversight at high-risk decision points.
- Lead the design and delivery of a self-service RAG builder including ingestion pipelines chunking embedding vector store integration hybrid retrieval and reranking surfaced through a low-code interface accessible to non-technical users.
- Build and operate an enterprise tool and skill registry: a versioned catalog of APIs functions MCP servers and data connectors that agents can securely discover and invoke with schema contracts authentication and access controls.
- Establish and manage the enterprise prompt management system with versioning governance workflows A/B testing rollback capabilities and domain-specific prompt libraries for commercial medical and R&D functions.
- Own the evaluation and benchmarking methodology for agentic systems. Design rigorous quantitative eval suites covering accuracy faithfulness groundedness task completion latency cost and safety. Implement automated regression detection in production.
- Design and implement multi-layer guardrail frameworks including input/output validation content moderation hallucination detection policy enforcement and agent permission scoping aligned with AI governance policy and regulatory requirements.
- Apply product thinking and user-centered design to platform tooling; track adoption metrics gather user feedback and iterate to reduce friction for non-engineer stakeholders across Commercial Medical Affairs R&D and Corporate Functions.
- Contribute to the enterprise AI strategy and portfolio roadmap; participate actively in the AI Governance Council providing expertise on agentic risk safety and platform governance.
- Ensure all engineered solutions comply with global AI regulations ethical AI standards data privacy requirements (HIPAA GDPR) applicable GxP processes and enterprise security standards.
- Mentor engineers and foster a culture of rigorous evaluation responsible experimentation and continuous improvement across the AI team.
- Other responsibilities as assigned.
Education/Experience/Skills
- Bachelors degree in Computer Science Software Engineering Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence or a related technical discipline required; advanced degree preferred
- 8 years of experience in AI/ML software engineering or a related field including 4 years of current hands-on experience building production-grade agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications
- Experience delivering self-service or platform tooling adopted by non-technical users
- Expert-level proficiency with at least two major agent frameworks such as LangGraph CrewAI Anthropic Agents SDK or OpenAI Agents SDK including framework customization and development
- Expert-level experience designing and implementing RAG solutions including chunking strategies embedding selection vector databases hybrid retrieval and reranking methodologies
- Hands-on experience developing enterprise AI capabilities including evaluation frameworks guardrails agent memory systems human-in-the-loop workflows tool registries skill registries and prompt management platforms
- Experience building or integrating Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and exposing enterprise capabilities to AI agents
- Proficiency in Python and machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch scikit-learn and Hugging Face Transformers with a strong understanding of LLM architectures and traditional machine learning techniques
- Experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools to accelerate software delivery automate code generation and improve engineering productivity
- Experience working within regulated environments and AI governance frameworks including GxP NIST AI RMF EU AI Act or similar compliance standards
- Biopharmaceutical industry experience including familiarity with commercial medical research clinical or market access functions and relevant healthcare data sources
- Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed
- An equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered
- Other duties as assigned
Physical Requirements
This role involves regular standing walking sitting and the use of hands for handling or operating equipment. The employee may also need to reach climb balance stoop kneel crouch and maintain visual verbal and auditory communication in a standard office environment and while working independently from remote locations. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 20 pounds. This position requires the ability to travel independently overnight and/or work after hours as required by travel schedules or business needs.
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Director
About Company
For 30 years, Acadia has been working at the forefront of healthcare to protect what makes you, uniquely you. This is our purpose.