Job Description
Associate Director, Technical Product Manager – Data & Platform Capabilities
We aspire to be the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company. We're at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions that advance the prevention and treatment of diseases in people and animals. Join our company and be part of a team that uses the power of leading-edge science to save and improve lives around the world.
Responsibilities
- Own and manage the decision intelligence and platform capabilities throughout their entire lifecycle.
- Define the overall product vision, roadmaps, and strategy with a keen focus on value, business outcome, and user experience.
- Drive the organizational shift to a "Data as a Product" model, ensuring data assets are discoverable, trusted, reusable, and AI-ready.
- Create, maintain, and continuously prioritize the product backlog to maximize value delivery, balance platform limitations, and ensure long-term sustainability.
- Develop and regularly calibrate product metrics, focusing on adoption, data quality, total cost of ownership (TCO), and value realization.
- Build trusted partnerships and manage relationships with Animal Health IT Value Teams, business leaders, and central platform engineering teams.
- Actively engage stakeholders to translate pain points, operational frustrations, and business requirements into structured roadmap deliverables.
- Manage complex stakeholder communications and expectations across a global, multi-functional, and highly matrixed environment.
- Oversee product budgets, build robust business cases for complex platform components, and coordinate closely with platform vendors on product enhancements.
- Partner with engineering teams across the product life cycle.
- Work closely with technical SMEs, information architects, and data/software engineers to assess alignment between functional requirements, technical solutions, and platform capabilities.
- Ensure all developed products and capabilities comply with regulatory standards as applicable (e.g. company cybersecurity policies, GDPR, GxP, and animal health regulatory standards).
- Drive behavioral and cultural change toward data reuse, self-service enablement, and platform product thinking across the organization.
- Influence and coordinate delivery squads in a matrixed environment to ensure milestones are met.
- Operate with a pragmatic, hands-on approach; be comfortable diving into technical details.
- Act as a mentor and coach, with the potential to assume formal people management responsibilities.
Qualifications
Required
- 7+ years of experience in technical product management or product ownership, including roadmap definition, backlog prioritization, lifecycle management, and value-based delivery.
- Demonstrated experience working with enterprise data platforms, data engineering, data governance, analytics, or related data capabilities, including complex data products, platforms, or enterprise-scale data domains.
- Experience with managing, structuring, and organizing complex portfolios of work, program lifecycles, or business process improvement projects.
- Proven experience working within highly regulated or complex compliance environments (e.g., GxP, pharmaceutical, clinical, financial, or highly audited sectors) where quality assurance plays a major role.
- Exceptional stakeholder relationship management skills with a proven track record of aligning global, matrixed, multi-timezone business and technical teams.
- Strong conceptual and technical understanding of modern cloud-native data stacks, data pipelines (ETL/ELT), and data lake/lakehouse architectures.
- Excellent written and verbal English communication skills, with a proven ability to translate complex technical limitations into clear business terms, and collaborate effectively with diverse global teams.
- Prior formal experience as a team lead or people manager coaching and developing technical professionals.
- Direct experience partnering with enterprise software vendors on product evaluations, contract alignment, or co-development.
Preferred
- Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Business Administration, or a related technology discipline.
- Background executing or leading business process improvement projects specifically for Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Quality, or Logistics.
- Hands-on experience with the Databricks platform (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog) and modern semantic layers.
- Experience with AERA or similar decision intelligence tooling.
- Experience utilizing enterprise AI/Generative AI capabilities to accelerate and scale delivery or increase internal team productivity.
What we offer:
- Exciting work in a great team, global projects, international environment
- Opportunity to learn and grow professionally within the company globally
- Hybrid working model, flexible role pattern
- Competitive salary & incentive pay
- Pension and health insurance contributions
- Internal reward system and referral scheme
- 5 weeks annual leave, 5 sick days, 15 days of certified sick leave paid above statutory requirements annually, 40 paid hours annually for volunteering activities, 12 weeks of parental contribution
- Cafeteria for tax-free benefits according to your choice (meal vouchers, sport, culture, health, travel, etc.), Multisport Card
- Vodafone, Raiffeisen Bank, Foodora, and discount programmes
- Up-to-date laptop and iPhone
- Parking in the garage, showers, refreshments, massage chairs, library, music corner
Ready to take up the challenge? Apply now! Know anybody who might be interested? Refer this job!
Required Skills:
Data Engineering, Enterprise Data, Hands-On Leadership, Leadership, People Management, Process Improvements, Product Ownership
Preferred Skills:
Current Employees apply HERE
Current Contingent Workers apply HERE
Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company. No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails.
Employee Status:
Regular
Relocation:
No relocation
VISA Sponsorship:
No
Travel Requirements:
10%
Flexible Work Arrangements:
Hybrid
Shift:
1st - Day
Valid Driving License:
No
Hazardous Material(s):
n/a
Job Posting End Date:
08/22/2026
*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.
