Director, Principal Software Engineer - Forward Deployed

ROLE SUMMARY
We are seeking a skilled Software Engineer who will design, build, and maintain software systems that deliver business value. 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.
In this forward-deployed role, you will be embedded directly with business units including Commercial, Manufacturing, and R&D. You will operate like a "startup CTO," 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 hand off validated solutions to Platform Engineers for generalization into enterprise capabilities.
This role encompasses business unit technical strategy and architectural direction. You will define strategic direction and be accountable for outcomes, shape practices across the business unit and maintain external visibility. You will handle business unit complexity creating clarity from ambiguity.
ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Business: Shape technology-driven business strategy, represent technical perspective at executive level, and be recognized as a bridge between engineering and business
• Delivery: Drive delivery of the most critical technical initiatives, establish engineering delivery practices across the business unit, and be the technical authority on high-stakes projects
• Machine Learning: Define ML strategy across the business unit, lead enterprise ML initiatives, innovate on ML approaches, and be the technical authority on machine learning
• People: Develop technical leaders, shape engineering talent strategy across the business unit, and build high-performing engineering teams
• Artificial Intelligence: Design AI-augmented engineering workflows for your area, evaluate new AI tools, train engineers on effective AI usage, and balance speed with verification
• Scale: Lead architectural decisions for complex systems across teams, establish quality standards for your area, mentor engineers on architecture, and own technical debt strategy
• Documentation: Establish documentation standards across teams in your area, build knowledge management systems, and mentor engineers on effective technical writing
• Reliability: Design for reliability, implement comprehensive monitoring and alerting, lead incident response, and drive post-incident improvements
• Process: Drive process efficiency within your team, coordinate cross-functional technical work, and lead retrospectives

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 Engineer 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 workers; drives clarity as a core value across their function; represents the organization externally
• Think in Systems: Shapes systems design practices across their function; conducts chaos engineering experiments; influences cross-team architecture decisions; creates clarity from complexity; bridges technical systems with business processes

QUALIFICATIONS
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field with 8+ years of relevant experience. Master's degree preferred. Industry thought leader with enterprise-wide strategic influence.
EXPERT-LEVEL SKILLS

• Business Immersion: You are a recognized thought leader in your domain. You influence domain strategy across the business unit, exemplify the business immersion mindset that defines forward-deployed engineering, and shape how engineering engages with the business.
• Data Integration: You define data integration patterns and best practices across the business unit. You architect large-scale data flows, solve the most complex integration challenges, and are the authority on enterprise data integration.
• Full-Stack Development: You work comfortably in any language and rapidly acquire new skills as needed. You deliver production solutions in days not months, shape full-stack practices across the business unit, and exemplify polymathic engineering.
• Model Development: You innovate on ML approaches for novel problems, shape ML strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field through research or publication, and are recognized as an ML authority.
• Model Fine-Tuning: You innovate on fine-tuning approaches for novel problems, shape model customization strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field, and are recognized as a fine-tuning authority.
• Multi-Audience Communication: You shape communication practices across the business unit. You represent engineering externally, communicate at board and executive level, and are recognized as an exceptional communicator who bridges any audience gap.
• Problem Discovery: You shape approaches to problem discovery across the business unit. You are recognized for transforming ambiguous situations into clear opportunities, influence how teams engage with business problems, and are the go-to person for the most undefined challenges.
• Rapid Prototyping & Validation: You shape culture around rapid validation and iterative delivery across the business unit. You are recognized for transformative fast delivery, define standards for prototype-to-production, and exemplify the "deliver in days" mindset.
• Retrieval Augmentation: You innovate on RAG architectures for novel problems, shape RAG strategy across the business unit, contribute to the field through research or tooling, and are recognized as a RAG authority.
• Stakeholder Management: You shape stakeholder practices across the business unit. You manage executive relationships, represent engineering at the highest levels, and are recognized for exceptional stakeholder partnerships.
• Team Collaboration: You create collaborative culture across the business unit. You transform dysfunctional team dynamics, are recognized for building exceptional teams, and mentor others on collaboration excellence.

PRACTITIONER-LEVEL SKILLS

• AI Evaluation & Observability: You lead evaluation strategy across teams in your area, establishing annotation guidelines, training human-calibrated LLM judges, and building evaluation pipelines that connect tracing to datasets to experiments. You design multi-evaluator strategies for complex quality dimensions.
• AI Literacy: You lead AI adoption decisions across teams in your area. You assess AI tools and vendors systematically, train engineers on AI concepts, and establish guidelines for appropriate AI use.
• AI-Augmented Development: You optimize AI tool usage across teams in your area, train engineers on AI-augmented workflows, evaluate new AI development tools, and establish practices that balance AI speed with verification rigor.
• Architecture & Design: You design complex multi-component systems end-to-end, evaluate architectural options for large initiatives across teams, guide technical decisions for your area, and mentor engineers on architecture. You balance elegance with delivery needs.
• Code Quality & Review: You establish and enforce quality standards across teams in your area. You mentor engineers on effective code review, ensure verification depth for AI-assisted development, and drive testing strategies.
• Developer Experience: You lead developer experience initiatives across teams in your area. You design comprehensive self-service platforms, establish DX metrics, conduct systematic user research, and mentor engineers on platform-as-product thinking.
• Knowledge Management: You lead knowledge management initiatives across teams in your area, create knowledge systems and taxonomies, establish practices that make institutional knowledge persistent, and mentor others on knowledge sharing.
• Pattern Generalization: You lead pattern generalization initiatives across teams, define criteria for when to generalize vs keep custom, and establish intake processes for receiving validated solutions from Forward Deployed Engineers. You mentor engineers on abstraction design.
• Technical Writing: You define documentation standards across teams in your area, create documentation systems and templates, train engineers on spec-driven development, and ensure documentation quality across projects.

Candidate demonstrates a breadth of diverse leadership experiences and capabilities including: the ability to influence and collaborate with peers, develop and coach others, oversee and guide the work of other colleagues to achieve meaningful outcomes and create business impact.
Work Location Assignment: Hybrid
Last Date to Apply for Job: 3/5/2026
The annual base salary for this position ranges from $162,900.00 to $261,000.00.* In addition, this position is eligible for participation in Pfizer's Global Performance Plan with a bonus target of 20.0% of the base salary and eligibility to participate in our share based long term incentive program. We offer comprehensive and generous benefits and programs to help our colleagues lead healthy lives and to support each of life's moments. Benefits offered include a 401(k) plan with Pfizer Matching Contributions and an additional Pfizer Retirement Savings Contribution, paid vacation, holiday and personal days, paid caregiver/parental and medical leave, and health benefits to include medical, prescription drug, dental and vision coverage. Learn more at Pfizer Candidate Site - U.S. Benefits | (uscandidates.mypfizerbenefits.com). Pfizer compensation structures and benefit packages are aligned based on the location of hire. The United States salary range provided does not apply to Tampa, FL or any location outside of the United States.
* The annual base salary for this position in Tampa, FL ranges from $141,000.00 to $235,000.00.
Relocation assistance may be available based on business needs and/or eligibility.
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