Senior Director, Principal Technical Architect

We are seeking a Senior Director, Principal Technical Architect to serve as the technical leader accountable for the technical strategy and architecture of one of Pfizer’s key Digital Platforms. This leader will define and advance the Platform’s technical direction, ensuring it is modern, secure, scalable, reusable, and aligned to Pfizer’s enterprise architecture standards and business priorities.

The role is accountable for translating enterprise and divisional needs into a clear technical strategy and target architecture for the Platform, and for guiding the engineering teams that build and operate it. This leader will work with senior business and Digital leaders, platform product owners, and enterprise architects to ensure the Platform delivers measurable value and integrates cleanly into Pfizer’s broader platform spine.

This position requires a senior, hands-on technical leader who can operate at the intersection of platform strategy, modern engineering, AI-enabled delivery, and architectural governance. The Senior Director will create clarity from complexity, make sound architecture and investment trade-offs, develop technical talent, and set the technical standards that help Pfizer deliver faster, safer, and more reusable digital capabilities at global scale.

Role Responsibilities

• Platform Technical Strategy: Own the technical strategy for the Platform, connecting business priorities, enterprise architecture standards, and emerging technology into a clear, actionable roadmap and target-state architecture.
• Architecture and Design Authority: Serve as the design authority for the Platform, defining its target architecture, key technical standards, and integration patterns, and ensuring major technical decisions are sound, sustainable, and fit for enterprise scale.
• Platform Engineering Leadership: Lead and develop the engineering team(s) that build and operate the Platform, ensuring investments are modern, secure, scalable, reusable, and aligned to enterprise priorities.
• Stakeholder Partnership: Partner with senior business and Digital leaders, product owners, and divisional teams to translate ambiguous needs into practical technical choices, delivery models, and measurable outcomes for the Platform.
• AI-Enabled Delivery: Define how AI, automation, and modern engineering practices are responsibly applied to the Platform to increase speed, improve quality, strengthen decision-making, and maintain appropriate governance and verification.
• Technical Talent and Culture: Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team of engineers and technical leads, creating a culture of technical excellence, hands-on credibility, business partnership, accountability, inclusion, and continuous learning.
• Reliability, Security, and Governance: Establish and uphold expectations for reliability, security, documentation, and operational excellence across the Platform, ensuring it is compliant, observable, and resilient at global scale.

Role Behaviours

• Don't Lose Your Curiosity: Fosters a culture of curiosity and continuous learning on the platform team; sponsors experimentation and problem discovery; brings emerging technologies and outside-in perspectives into the Platform’s technical direction.
• Set an example for your team: Consistently demonstrate a clear technical vision, positive energy, and exemplary engineering practices that motivate your team to strive for their highest potential.
• Own the Outcome: Sets clear accountability standards focused on business impact and platform health; takes end-to-end ownership of technical outcomes; holds the team to delivery and quality commitments in the AI era.
• Connect Across Disciplines: Bridges technical and business domains; inspires holistic solutions spanning architecture, engineering, and platform operations; brings broad technical perspective and practical problem-solving to complex challenges; translates specialized knowledge into accessible explanations; thinks like a business insider.
• Communicate with Precision: Champions spec-driven development and precise technical communication; mentors others on framing trade-offs clearly; communicates effectively from executives to engineers; drives clarity as a core value across the platform team.
• Think in Systems: Shapes systems design and architecture practices for the Platform; anticipates failure modes and designs for resilience; enables chaos engineering experiments; influences cross-team architecture decisions; creates clarity from complexity.

Qualifications

• Basic Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field, with 12+ years of significant senior engineering and technical leadership experience in enterprise platforms, cloud, or large-scale technology delivery.
• Demonstrated experience owning the technical strategy and architecture of a significant platform, product, or technology domain.
• Proven ability to lead and develop engineering teams, including engineers, architects, and technical leads.
• Deep, hands-on technical expertise in modern engineering practices, cloud platforms, data and integration patterns, APIs, security, and reliability.
• Experience partnering with senior business and Digital stakeholders to shape technical direction, investment choices, and measurable outcomes.

• Preferred Qualifications: Advanced degree in a technology, engineering, or related discipline preferred.
• Experience operating in a highly regulated, global enterprise environment with complex compliance, privacy, security, and risk expectations.
• Experience applying AI-enabled delivery, automation, and platform reuse to improve speed and quality.
• Track record of influencing senior leaders, building trusted partnerships, and creating clarity in ambiguous, high-impact situations.
• Recognized technical depth in the Platform’s core technology domain (e.g., agent platforms, data fabric, developer experience, colleague-facing AI, or cyber defense, as applicable).

Leadership Capabilities

• Technical Strategy and Judgment: Connects business needs, enterprise architecture, and platform strategy into a practical technical direction that guides design and investment.
• Influence and Partnership: Communicates clearly with senior business and Digital leaders, frames trade-offs, builds alignment, and drives decisions without relying solely on formal authority.
• Technical Depth and Breadth: Brings hands-on technical credibility to guide engineers, challenge assumptions, evaluate emerging technologies, and make sound platform-scale technology choices.
• Talent Leadership: Develops technical leaders, builds team capability and succession, and creates an inclusive culture of accountability, curiosity, and continuous learning.
• AI and Modern Delivery Mindset: Understands how AI, automation, modern engineering, product thinking, and platform reuse can improve speed, quality, and value while maintaining appropriate controls and verification.

Work Location Assignment: Hybrid