Drug Substance Division (DSD) AI Lead (Remote - EST)

Drug Substance Division (DSD) AI Lead (Remote - EST)

We are looking to hire a candidate with the skills sets mentioned and experience for one of our clients within the pharmaceutical Industry. This is a 6+ month contracting role, with potential for extension. This is a Remote role, with a preference for candidates in the EST zone to facilitate coordination with teams across EST, PST, and EU time zones.

Role Summary:

You are the AI forward-deployed engineer for Drug Substance Division (DSD) operations within Thermo Fisher's Pharma Services Group. Your mission is to identify where AI can materially improve day-to-day work, then build and ship solutions that teams actually use. You deliver hands-on with AWS, Databricks, Dataiku, and OpenAI, and you drive ChatGPT adoption across DSD workflows.

You must hold two truths at once: the business needs near-term outcomes, while IT continues building medium/long-term data and AI foundations (for example: MCP server patterns, A2A approaches, reusable agent frameworks, governance and scalable integrations). You create a clear vision that connects immediate wins to scalable, supportable capabilities.

Key Responsibilities:

• Identify high-leverage DSD use cases: Target opportunities across DS operations (technical knowledge retrieval, investigation support, documentation acceleration, operational insights, exception triage, capacity/coordination decision support).
• Build prototypes and deliver MVPs: Create working solutions using AWS/Databricks/Dataiku/OpenAI, integrating operational data and documents into usable workflows.
• Data readiness and integration: Assess data availability/quality; define what's needed and influence how to get there (standard sources, access patterns, reusable pipelines).
• Roadmap ownership: Produce a DSD capability roadmap with milestones, dependencies, and impact metrics.
• Balance quick wins vs foundations: Deliver what helps DSD now while shaping patterns that will scale as the enterprise platform matures (reusable assets, integration standards, evaluation/monitoring, agent orchestration approaches).
• Vision and transition plan: Define the DSD AI north star and a staged path from POCs to reusable capabilities to scaled delivery.
• Drive ChatGPT adoption: Build prompt libraries, playbooks, and training tied to real DS work; measure usage and outcomes.
• Stay current and apply responsibly: Keep pace with AI advances and translate them into practical, controlled, high-impact solutions suitable for DSD environments.

Required Skills/Qualifications:

• Domain fluency in drug substance operations and how DS work is executed (process understanding, technical documentation, investigations interfaces, performance drivers).
• Primary Stack: AWS, Dataiku, Databricks, and OpenAI.
• Strong hands-on delivery skills: Python/SQL plus AWS and Databricks and/or Dataiku experience; applied use of OpenAI.
• Applied GenAI/LLM experience (RAG, evaluation, guardrails, workflow integration, adoption enablement).
• Strong ChatGPT adoption in DSD workflows.
• Ability to work independently, drive ambiguity to shipped outcomes, and communicate clearly to senior stakeholders.
• Practical GxP awareness and experience operating with controlled documents/data access.
• Experience working across distributed/global DS operations.

Other Job Details:

• Job Type: C2C or W2.
• Duration: 6 - 12 months with high possibility of extension.
• Location: Remote (preferred candidates in the EST zone to facilitate coordination with teams across EST, PST, and EU time zones).
• Pay Rate: $70/hr. on C2C. or $62/hr. on W2.
• Interviews: Video interviews.
• Docs required: ID proof will be required.