Director, Principal Software Engineer - Strategic Engineering at Pfizer in Groton, CT

Job description

Use Your Power for Purpose Technology impacts everything we do. Pfizer’s digital and ‘data first’ strategy is dedicated to implementing innovative and impactful technology solutions across all functions, from research to manufacturing. Whether you are digitizing drug discovery and development, identifying solutions, or making our work easier and faster, you will be making a significant difference to countless lives. By focusing on these advancements, you contribute to a future where technology enhances every aspect of our operations, ultimately benefiting patients worldwide. What You Will Achieve In this role, you will focus on code quality, architecture decisions, and reliable delivery while leveraging AI tools to enhance productivity. You will verify and review AI-generated code to ensure it meets our quality standards. You will be bridging the gap between building products and solving real business problems through rapid solution delivery and deep domain expertise. As part of the discovery-to-scale pipeline, you will identify recurring patterns, and lead validated solutions generalization into enterprise capabilities. This role encompasses organization-wide technical strategy and architectural direction. You will define strategic direction and be accountable for outcomes, shape organizational practices and maintain external industry visibility. You will handle organizational-scale complexity creating clarity from chaos. ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES Forward-Deployed Pod Leadership: Lead a forward-deployed pod of engineers and product owners responsible for creating quick, high-quality applications supporting ELT and ELT-1 initiatives Delivery: Drive delivery of the most critical technical initiatives, establish engineering delivery practices across the team, and be the technical authority on high-stakes projects People: Develop technical leaders, shape engineering talent strategy, and build high-performing engineering teams Business: Shape technology-driven strategy, represent technical perspective at executive level, and be recognized as a bridge between engineering and business AI: Design AI-augmented engineering workflows for your area, evaluate new AI tools, train engineers on effective AI usage, and balance speed with verification Reliability: Establish SLOs/SLIs across teams, build resilient systems, lead reliability initiatives for your area, mentor engineers on reliability practices, and drive reliability culture Documentation: Establish documentation standards across teams in your area, build knowledge management systems, and mentor engineers on effective technical writing Process: Drive process efficiency within your team, coordinate cross-functional technical work, and lead retrospectives Executive Communication: Present complex technical solutions to senior leadership and executive audiences in a clear, compelling way Community & Mentorship: Participate as a leader in guild events and serve as an active leader in the mentorship program ROLE BEHAVIOURS Don't Lose Your Curiosity: Shapes organizational culture around curiosity and continuous learning; sponsors experimental initiatives across the organization; recognized externally as a thought leader in problem discovery; influences industry practices around innovation and exploration Own the Outcome: Defines organizational accountability standards focused on business impact; shapes industry practices around outcome ownership in the AI era; sponsors transformational initiatives with full outcome accountability; recognized externally for ownership culture leadership Be Polymath Oriented: Champions cross-disciplinary learning; creates holistic solutions spanning technical and business domains; embodies the Renaissance Developer ideal; translates specialized knowledge into accessible explanations; thinks like a business insider Communicate with Precision: Creates spec-driven development practices; mentors others on precise communication; spans C-level executives to frontline