Head of Forward-Deployed Data Engineer

Job description

At Roche you can show up as yourself, embraced for the unique qualities you bring. Our culture encourages personal expression, open dialogue, and genuine connections, where you are valued, accepted and respected for who you are, allowing you to thrive both personally and professionally. This is how we aim to prevent, stop and cure diseases and ensure everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Join Roche, where every voice matters. The PositionIntroductionAt Roche, we believe every employee can make a monumental impact on patient care. As the Head of Forward-Deployed Data Engineering, you will lead a dynamic, Hyderabad-based team dedicated to accelerating our highest-priority AI, Data, and agentic transformation use cases across the company. You will champion the intersection of cutting-edge AI strategy and robust enterprise data architecture to shape the future of how work gets done at Roche. About RDT Data: RDT Data brings together 4 functional areas: Data Governance and Adoption, Business Operations and Data Platforms: The Data Governance team establishes the Data Governance and Data Management practices which are required for organizational alignment of our data. The Business Operations team focuses on enabling a high performing Data Organization within the broader RDT Context. The Data Platform organization provides the foundational capabilities that enable Roche to create, manage, discover, govern, integrate, and consume data, context, and knowledge at scale. The organization supports a federated data architecture in which domains retain ownership of their data while central platform teams provide reusable capabilities, standards, patterns, and guardrails. The platform organization is structured around four capability areas: BI, Search & Data Marketplace; Data Integration, APIs, MCP, Streaming & Observability; Data Platforms, Data Lakes / Lakehouse, Vector DB, Knowledge Graph & DataOps Tooling; Semantic Layer, MDM, Metadata Management & Context Layer. The Forward-Deployed Data Engineering team complements these teams by accelerating priority AI use cases and converting implementation learnings into roadmap direction and reusable enterprise capabilities. The Opportunity:Establish and lead a high-performing Hyderabad-based team of approximately 10 forward-deployed data engineers focused on frontier AI and autonomous agentic frameworks. Direct and influence the global strategic roadmap for AI-ready data, semantic enablement, context engineering, and federated data foundations across the platform teams. Partner directly with Applied AI and forward-deployed AI engineering teams to rapidly resolve data bottlenecks and ensure fit-for-purpose data, trusted context, and governed integration. Translate complex business needs across Pharma, Diagnostics, Commercial, and Supply Chain into reusable enterprise platform patterns and scalable blueprints. Provide executive thought leadership on leveraging emerging data platforms, vector databases, knowledge graphs, and MCP to transform productivity and scale AI safely. Collaborate closely with the four global Platform Leads to inject forward-looking tech trends and implementation learnings into platform planning while respecting their engineering delivery ownership. Drive strict engineering excellence by embedding data contracts, quality controls, lineage, observability, and governance-by-design into all forward-deployed use cases. Act as the local Community Lead for 30–40 Hyderabad-based data platform experts, building a vibrant engineering culture centered on experimentation, fast talent development, and unified strategic direction. Who You Are:Experienced Engineering Leader: You bring a proven track record (typically 10+ years of experience preferred) leading senior data engineering teams that directly accelerate high-priority AI/analytics use cases in large enterprises. Data Platform & Federated Architecture Expert: You possess deep technical experience with modern enterprise platforms, including data lakes, lakehouses, data products, metadata platforms, and working in federated data environments. AI & Agentic Tech Visionary: You possess a strong understanding of GenAI, agentic frameworks, context retrieval architectures, vector databases, knowledge graphs, and semantic layers. Strategic Influencer: You demonstrate an outstanding ability to operate in a matrixed environment, shaping platform roadmaps and aligning diverse technical teams without direct organizational ownership. Community Builder & Talent Developer: You have proven experience building local engineering cultures, supporting career growth, and connecting distributed hub teams tightly to global leadership. Regulated Environment Navigator: You are highly comfortable operating within complex, regulated environments where quality, compliance, security, privacy, and auditability are critical to enterprise scale. Educated Professional: You hold a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree (preferred) in Computer Science, Data Engineering, Information Technology, or a highly related technical field. Call to Action:Ready to bring your unique qualities to Roche and make an impact? Apply now and join us in our mission to shape the future of healthcare. #Hyderabad26 Who we areA healthier future drives us to innovate. Together, more than 100’000 employees across the globe are dedicated to advance science, ensuring everyone has access to healthcare today and for generations to come. Our efforts result in more than 26 million people treated with our medicines and over 30 billion tests conducted using our Diagnostics products. We empower each other to explore new possibilities, foster creativity, and keep our ambitions high, so we can deliver life-changing healthcare solutions that make a global impact. Let’s build a healthier future, together. Roche is an Equal Opportunity Employer.