Associate Director AI Platform Architect

Summary Location: Hyderabad

The Associate Director, AI Platform Architect will play a pivotal role in architecting, evaluating, and delivering enterprise-grade AI platform solutions across Novartis. Working at the intersection of cloud infrastructure, GenAI innovation, and regulated life sciences, this individual will serve as a trusted architect and advisor — partnering directly with Business Units (BUs), AI Project Management Office (AI PMO), and global platform teams to shape how AI is designed, built, and scaled across the enterprise.

About The Role Major accountabilities:

• Enterprise AI Platform Architecture

• Design, architect, and deliver scalable AI solutions leveraging enterprise platforms including Microsoft Azure (Azure AI Foundry), Amazon Web Services (AWS Bedrock, SageMaker), and Google Cloud Platform (Vertex AI, Gemini).
• Build and maintain reference architectures, reusable platform components, and technical blueprints that accelerate consistent AI adoption across Novartis business functions.
• Architect and oversee RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and Graph AI applications, supporting platforms for multi-agent workflows, LLM/Prompt fine-tuning, and data/context pipelines.

• Design and deliver enterprise AI platform solutions across Azure, AWS, and GCP environments.

• Technology Evaluation & Innovation

• Lead AI technology evaluations for diverse capabilities — assessing new platforms, frameworks, LLM models, and tooling against Novartis’s strategic, technical, and compliance requirements.
• Drive proof-of-concept (PoC) engagements leveraging different tools and technologies to validate feasibility, performance, and scalability, establishing clear roadmaps for onboarding approved solutions.

• Evaluate and recommend emerging GenAI tools and orchestration frameworks (LangChain, LlamaIndex, DSPy) and foundation model providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta Llama).

• Business Partnership

• Serve as the primary architectural point of contact responsible for delivering new AI use cases end-to-end for assigned Business Units, supporting BU-specific needs across the full solution lifecycle.
• Support AI demands and technology evaluations in direct partnership with the AI Product Management team (AI PMO) and Business Units, ensuring architecture aligns with product strategy and business priorities.

• Act as a trusted advisor for AI solutioning, translating complex business requirements into pragmatic and scalable technical architectures across global teams.

• Governance & Compliance

• Ensure all AI platform architectures align with responsible AI practices and compliance with NVS Security standards (IAM, GDPR), GxP validation requirements, and Platform Efficiency guidelines.
• Embed security, transparency, and fairness principles — including EU AI Act, HIPAA, and GxP obligations — into all architectures from inception.

• Collaborate with Legal, Risk, and Regulatory stakeholders to ensure platforms meet current and anticipated regulatory frameworks across all geographies in which Novartis operates.

• Leadership & Mentorship

• Provide technical guidance to solution teams and build AI platform capability within the India hub.
• Represent the AI Architecture function in Design Authority reviews, governance boards, and stakeholder forums, ensuring architectural decisions are defensible, documented, and consistent.
• Collaborate with peers across Novartis to ensure global consistency and scalability of AI platform solutions.

Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor’s / Master’s degree in Computer Science, Data Science, AI/ML, or equivalent. 14+ years in enterprise IT/solution architecture, including 5+ years in AI/ML and 3+ years in GenAI.
• Experience in pharma, life sciences, or healthcare industry highly preferred.
• Deep hands-on expertise with two or more enterprise AI platforms: Azure AI Foundry / Azure OpenAI, AWS Bedrock / SageMaker, or GCP Vertex AI / Gemini.
• Proven experience architecting RAG systems, Graph AI applications, multi-agent workflows, LLM fine-tuning, and data/context pipelines.
• Strong command of AI compliance and governance frameworks including IAM, GDPR, GxP, NVS Security standards, and EU AI Act in regulated environments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead technology evaluations and PoC programs, translating outcomes into actionable platform roadmaps.
• Proficiency in Python; familiarity with orchestration frameworks such as LangChain, LlamaIndex, or …