Associate Director - Enterprise Data Platforms

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Lilly’s Purpose

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our 35,000 employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

The Enterprise Data platforms enable the platform has developed an integrated and intuitive databases, integration and analytics platform. This platform enables Lilly business functions enables quickly utilize the database services, integration services and analytics platform.

What You Will Be Doing

As a leader, you will oversee a high-performing team, manage a strategic portfolio of enterprise data platforms, and foster a culture grounded in engineering excellence, automation, accountability, and continuous improvement.

Strategic Leadership & Portfolio Management

• Lead the strategy, roadmap, and execution of enterprise data platform operations initiatives with an SRE-first, product-centric mindset focused on reliability, automation, and user value.
• Evolve the portfolio of platforms operations of cloud databases, data Integration services, BI/analytics platforms, integration frameworks, and on-premises systems such as Oracle, Exadata, MQ, and Informatica.
• Ensure alignment with enterprise data strategy, Digital Core priorities, cybersecurity requirements, and long-term architectural direction.
• Embed platform governance, lifecycle management, compliance, and observability into every aspect of the portfolio.
  
  
  

Operational Excellence

• Oversee 24/7 operations with an emphasis on platform resilience, capacity, disaster recovery, cost visibility, and performance engineering.
• Drive the adoption of AI Ops, predictive monitoring, anomaly detection, and automated root cause analysis to reduce operational toil and accelerate recovery.
• Implement SLO-driven operations, distributed tracing, platform telemetry, and real-time observability across data pipelines, integrations, and platform services.
• Champion end-to-end automation and self-healing orchestration to eliminate manual intervention and accelerate speed-to-value.
  
  
  

People Development & Team Performance

• Lead and grow a diverse, inclusive global team of engineering managers, SREs, platform engineers, and operations specialists.
• Set clear goals, build leadership capability, and establish a culture of continuous learning, ownership, and engineering excellence.
• Coach teams to build deep expertise in cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, OCI), SRE frameworks, DevOps, Data Ops, AI Ops, and enterprise tooling.
• Scale and develop a strong leadership bench across India and global locations, ensuring long-term succession, career pathways, and talent retention.
  
  
  

Enterprise Collaboration & Influence

• Serve as a strategic partner across platform engineering, analytics, AI/ML, architecture, cybersecurity, and business domains to ensure platforms meet evolving stakeholder needs.
• Translate business requirements into scalable platform capabilities, ensuring adoption, reliability, and measurable business outcomes.
• Lead cross-functional modernization initiatives and represent the platform operations organization in enterprise governance and architecture forums.
• Influence enterprise-wide decisions on technology standards, platform patterns, and operating models.
  
  
  

Technology Strategy & Supplier Engagement

• Evaluate emerging technologies in cloud data platforms, observability tooling, autonomous operations, and agentic AI, recommending future-state architectures.
• Drive the selection, onboarding, and integration of tools that strengthen reliability, automation, and long-term scalability.
• Lead vendor and supplier engagements including RFI/RFP cycles, contract negotiations, and performance management.
• Ensure service partners support operational excellence, continuous modernization, and AI-driven efficiencies.
• Proven experience leading enterprise-scale data platform operations, engineering teams, or SRE organizations.
• Deep understanding of cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, OCI), on-prem data technologies, observability systems, and modern architectural frameworks.
• Demonstrated success in driving automation-first transformations, reducing operational complexity, and delivering high-availability platforms.
• Experience managing budgets, cost optimization, forecasting, and FinOps practices across multi-cloud environments.
• Strong stakeholder engagement skills with the ability to influence across technical and business leadership.
• Excellent communication, analytical, and problem-solving abilities with a track record of delivering complex platform programs.
• Commitment to inclusion, talent development, and building high-performing engineering cultures.
  
  
  

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in computer science, Data Engineering, Analytics, or related fields.
• 15+ years of experience in managing enterprise analytic platforms, with at least 5+ years in leadership roles.
• Experience managing regulated pharma or life sciences environments, integrating LRL, clinical, and manufacturing data.
• Strategic mindset with strong execution and delivery skills.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with experience engaging senior R&D, clinical, and commercial leaders.
• Proven track record of managing distributed global teams and vendor relationships.
• Analytical and results-driven with a focus on operational efficiency and innovation.
  
  
  

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

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