Technical Lead - Forward Deployed Engineering

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at www.abbvie.com. Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube.

The Technical Delivery Lead for Forward Deployed Engineering (FDE) leads a small, high-velocity engineering team that embeds directly with frontline business partners across product development, manufacturing, Quality and Finance. Working side by side with scientists, operators, quality professionals and finance teams at our sites, this leader identifies critical business problems, then uses data science, AI and modern software engineering to design and ship working prototypes in weeks, not quarters.

This is more than an individual contributor engineering role. The successful candidate is accountable for the technical direction, quality and delivery pace of FDE engagements, leads and develops the engineers on each engagement, and is a hands-on builder who sets the technical bar for the team.

Responsibilities:

Technical delivery leadership

• Serve as technical delivery lead for a portfolio of fast-paced FDE engagements, owning scope, architecture, technical risk, timelines, and outcomes from problem framing through prototype and handoff.
• Lead, coach, and assign work to a team of forward deployed engineers, data scientists, and partner resources; set engineering standards, review designs and code, and build team capability.
• Run short, iterative delivery cycles (e.g., discovery sprints, weekly demos) that move rapidly from hypothesis to a working solution in users’ hands.
• Make clear build/buy/scale decisions and define the path from prototype to production with BTS platform, product, and support teams.

Frontline partnership

• Travel to AbbVie sites to work directly with frontline employees—on the manufacturing floor, in labs, in Quality and in Finance—to observe workflows, understand pain points and co-design solutions.
• Translate ambiguous operational and financial problems into well-defined technical problems with measurable success criteria (e.g., cycle time, yield, right-first-time, deviation reduction, close timeliness).
• Build trusted relationships with site leaders and business stakeholders; communicate progress, trade-offs, and results clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences, including senior leadership.

Hands-on solution development

• Rapidly develop prototypes using data science, machine learning, generative AI / LLM and agentic tools, analytics, and application development frameworks.
• Integrate with enterprise and operational data sources such as MES, LIMS, QMS, ERP (e.g., SAP), historians, and data lake / cloud platforms.
• Apply AI-assisted development practices to accelerate delivery while maintaining code quality, security, and maintainability.
• Ensure solutions are designed with appropriate data integrity, privacy, cybersecurity, and responsible AI considerations, and engage Quality/CSV partners early where GxP impact exists.

Scale and impact

• Capture reusable patterns, components and playbooks so successful solutions can be replicated across sites and functions.
• Quantify and report business value delivered by FDE engagements; help shape the FDE engagement model and pipeline with BTS Operations & Finance leadership.

Required:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, a physical/life science, or related field with 7 years of relevant experience; Master’s Degree with 6 years of experience; or PhD with 2 years of experience.
• Demonstrated experience delivering data, analytics, AI, or software solutions in the life sciences industry (pharmaceutical, biotech or medical device) across one or more of: product development, manufacturing, Quality or Finance.
• Proven track record leading technical teams—setting direction, mentoring engineers and accountable for delivery of multiple concurrent projects.
• Strong hands-on engineering skills in Python and SQL, with experience building and deploying ML/AI solutions, including generative AI / LLM applications.
• Experience with cloud data and compute platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake) and modern software practices (Git, CI/CD, APIs, containerization).
• Experience working in rapid, iterative delivery environments—taking ambiguous problems to working prototypes on short timelines.
• Working knowledge of regulated environments (GxP, data integrity, computerized system validation) and how they shape solution design.
• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills; comfortable working directly with frontline staff and presenting to senior leaders.
• Willingness and ability to travel to sites up to 20% of the time.

Preferred:

• Prior forward deployed, solutions engineering, technical consulting, or internal innovation “skunkworks” team experience.
• Familiarity with manufacturing and quality systems and data (MES, LIMS, QMS, historians such as OSIsoft PI) and/or finance systems (SAP, planning and close tools).
• Experience with agentic AI frameworks, retrieval-augmented generation, computer vision, or optimization/simulation methods.
• Experience with full-stack or low-code application development for rapid user-facing tools (e.g., React, Streamlit, Power Apps).
• Experience moving prototypes to scaled, supported production solutions in partnership with platform and product teams.

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of this posting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location, and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​
• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​
• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs.

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission, incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless and until paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.​

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

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