Axtria - Senior Director - Data Science (India)

Job Summary

Responsible for leading Axtria's Data Science practice for pharma commercial analytics, driving delivery excellence, client partnership, and hands-on solutioning across predictive modelling, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI and Agentic AI.

Acts as the senior-most Subject Matter Expert (SME) for Data Science solutions, setting technical direction, building reusable IP, and mentoring a large team of data scientists while owning delivery accountability for pharma clients.

Key Responsibilities - Delivery Leadership

• Own end-to-end delivery of data science engagements for pharma commercial clients, ensuring quality, timelines, and business impact.
• Manage senior client/onshore stakeholders (D/ED/VP/CxO level) to build trusted advisory relationships and drive account growth.
• Lead, mentor, and scale a large team of data scientists, managers, and leads; define team structure, career paths, and capability-building plans.
• Drive program governance - resource planning, risk management, quality assurance, and adherence to delivery SLAs/KPIs across multiple engagements.
• Partner with sales and account teams on pre-sales - solutioning, RFP/RFI responses, proposal development, effort estimation, and pricing.
• Identify opportunities for account mining, cross-sell/up-sell of analytics and AI/Gen AI offerings within existing pharma accounts.
• Collaborate with technology, platform, and consulting teams to align data science delivery with Axtria's broader product and consulting roadmap.
• Institutionalize best practices, delivery frameworks, and reusable accelerators to improve speed-to-value across engagements.

Key Responsibilities - Subject Matter Expertise (SME)

• Serve as the hands-on SME for predictive modelling, statistical modelling, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI, and Agentic AI solutions.
• Architect and review solution design for complex analytics problems across patient journey analytics, HCP/payer/patient analytics, forecasting, and market mix modelling, recommendation engines.
• Provide technical oversight on model design, validation, performance benchmarking, and responsible/explainable AI practices.
• Drive adoption of Generative AI and Agentic AI frameworks (e.g., LLM-based copilots, RAG pipelines, multi-agent orchestration) for pharma commercial use cases.
• Guide teams on MLOps/LLMOps practices - model deployment, monitoring, retraining, and governance at scale.
• Represent Axtria as a thought leader - author points of view (POVs), white papers, and present at internal/external forums and industry conferences.
• Evaluate emerging tools, platforms, and techniques in AI/ML/Gen AI and assess their applicability to pharma commercial analytics.
• Champion innovation - sponsor hackathons, incubate new solution frameworks, and contribute to Axtria's data science IP and accelerators.

Requirements

• 15 years of overall experience in Data Science / Advanced Analytics, including at least 5 years of Pharma commercial analytics experience.
• Demonstrated hands-on capability (not only oversight) in predictive modelling, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Generative AI, and Agentic AI solutions.
• Proven experience managing large data science teams (30 associates) across multiple concurrent client engagements.
• Strong track record of client relationship management with top pharmaceutical/life sciences companies.
• Experience contributing to pre-sales, proposal development, and account growth in a consulting/analytics services setting.
• Excellent executive communication, storytelling, and stakeholder management skills.
• Strong business acumen with the ability to translate analytics into commercial impact and ROI.

Qualifications

• Master's or Ph.D. in Statistics, Computer Science, Data Science, Economics, Mathematics, Operations Research, Engineering, or a related quantitative discipline.

Must-Have Skills

• Deep expertise in pharma commercial analytics - HCP, patient, and payer analytics; and pharma real-world data (APLD, EMR, prescription, claims, specialty pharmacy).
• Hands-on expertise in statistical modelling and AI/ML tools - Python, PySpark, SQL, Databricks, and cloud platforms (AWS/Azure/GCP).
• Strong command of ML algorithms - XGBoost, AdaBoost, Random Forest, K-means, clustering, segmentation, and lookalike modelling.
• Hands-on experience with Deep Learning frameworks - TensorFlow, PyTorch, Keras.
• Hands-on experience with Generative AI - LLMs (e.g., GPT, Claude, Llama), prompt engineering, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), and fine-tuning.
• Working knowledge of Agentic AI frameworks - LangChain, LangGraph, AutoGen, CrewAI, Semantic Kernel, or equivalent.
• Experience with MLOps/LLMOps practices - CI/CD for ML, model monitoring, and governance.
• Proven people leadership - managing, mentoring, and growing large, multi-level data science teams.

Nice-to-Have Skills

• Prior P&L; or account ownership within a consulting/analytics services organization.
• Publications, patents, or conference presentations in AI/ML/Gen AI.
• Experience building or scaling a Center of Excellence (CoE) for Data Science/AI within an organization.
• Relevant certifications in cloud, AI/ML, or Generative AI platforms.

What Axtria Provides

• Inclusive environment encouraging diverse perspectives.
• Opportunities to shape and lead a transforming Data Science practice with global impact.
• Technical challenges at the intersection of pharma commercial strategy and cutting-edge AI/Gen AI.
• Self-development opportunities (Axtria Institute, certifications, knowledge sharing).
• Sponsored Tech Talks & Hackathons.
• Relocation opportunities across offices.
• Benefits: Health insurance, retirement, paid time off, flexible benefits, hybrid working.

Culture

• Equal opportunity employer valuing diversity and inclusiveness.
• 14 years of growth and recognition as a Great Place to Work.