Director, Developer Skills & Careers

ROLE SUMMARY

We are seeking an experienced Engineering Management leader to build and lead high-performing engineering teams. In this role, you will drive team effectiveness and career development while ensuring organizational outcomes are achieved. You will create space for innovation and model the ownership behaviors that define our engineering culture.

In this developer experience role, you will own the engineering skills framework and recruitment pipeline end-to-end. You will define what great engineering looks like at every career level, design assessment and development programs, and ensure we attract and retain top talent. You will partner with Talent Acquisition, HR, and engineering leadership to build a world-class engineering workforce.

This role encompasses business unit technical strategy for skills and talent. You will define the strategic direction for engineering career progression, shape hiring practices across the business unit, and maintain external visibility as an employer brand ambassador. You will handle business unit complexity creating clarity from ambiguity around engineering capability and growth.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Business: Shape technology-driven talent strategy, represent engineering skills and recruitment at executive level, and own strategic workforce planning outcomes

• Data: Shape skills and recruitment data strategy across the business unit, lead data-driven hiring practices, and represent talent analytics priorities at executive level

• People: Develop senior leaders, shape talent strategy across the business unit, own the engineering career framework, define leveling criteria, and own succession planning

• Documentation: Shape skills framework documentation across the business unit, enable broad knowledge sharing of career pathways, and own competency governance

• Artificial Intelligence: Drive AI adoption in recruitment and skills assessment, establish AI governance guidelines for candidate evaluation, and own cross-team AI-assisted hiring decisions

• Process: Establish hiring and skills assessment processes across teams in your area, lead change initiatives in engineering career development, own cross-team calibration, and drive continuous improvement

• Reliability: Own team reliability outcomes, manage incident response rotations, staff reliability initiatives, and champion operational excellence

• Delivery: Coordinate team delivery by managing dependencies, removing blockers, and keeping stakeholders informed

• Scale: Support team technical decisions, ensure alignment with architectural standards, and escalate technical risks

ROLE BEHAVIOURS

• Communicate with Precision: Shapes industry standards for technical communication; recognized authority on spec-driven AI development; influences organizational communication culture; publishes on precision in the AI era; keynotes at industry conferences

• Think in Systems: Defines organizational systems architecture principles; recognized industry authority on complex systems; advises executive leadership on systemic risks and opportunities; publishes thought leadership on systems thinking in technology organizations

• Don't Lose Your Curiosity: Drives team curiosity through challenging questions; creates environments where exploration and experimentation are encouraged; models problem discovery orientation; seeks out ambiguity rather than avoiding it

• Own the Outcome: Drives accountability culture focused on outcomes not deliverables; owns business relationships and impact metrics across their function; makes trade-offs between custom solutions and generalizable work; there is no "I must run this by X"; ensures verification rigor for AI-generated code

• Be Polymath Oriented: Bridges gaps between engineering, design, business, and science; rapidly immerses in new domains; speaks the language of Commercial, Manufacturing, or R&D; makes better decisions by understanding broader context

EXPERT-LEVEL SKILLS

• Developer Experience: You shape developer skills and recruitment strategy across the business unit. You create innovative approaches to engineering career frameworks, are recognized for building high-quality talent pipelines, and influence industry practices on engineering leveling and growth.

• Knowledge Management: You shape enterprise knowledge strategy and governance for skills and career development. You drive learning organization culture, create competency frameworks that others adopt, and are recognized for building knowledge-driven engineering organizations.

• Multi-Audience Communication: You shape communication practices across the business unit. You represent engineering externally as an employer brand ambassador, communicate at board and executive level on talent strategy, and are recognized as an exceptional communicator who bridges any audience gap.

• Stakeholder Management: You shape stakeholder practices across the business unit. You manage executive relationships around talent and workforce planning, 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.

• Technical Writing: You shape documentation culture and standards for career frameworks and skills definitions across the business unit. You innovate on skills documentation approaches, are recognized for exceptional clarity in competency descriptions, and lead skills framework initiatives.

• Data Analysis: You shape skills and recruitment analytics culture and strategy across the business unit. You introduce innovative analytical approaches to talent assessment, solve the most complex workforce planning challenges, and are recognized as a talent analytics authority.

PRACTITIONER-LEVEL SKILLS

• AI Literacy: You lead AI adoption decisions for recruitment and skills assessment across teams in your area. You assess AI tools and vendors for candidate evaluation systematically, train engineers on AI-assisted hiring, and establish guidelines for appropriate AI use in talent processes.

• Business Immersion: You immerse in operations until you think like an insider. You rapidly acquire domain expertise through direct observation, translate between business and engineering talent needs seamlessly, and mentor engineers in your area on immersion.

• Lean Thinking & Flow: You lead lean transformations in hiring and onboarding processes across teams in your area, design flow-optimized recruitment pipelines, coach on lean principles, and balance hiring speed with quality. You establish metrics that drive continuous improvement.

• Time Management & Deep Work:You optimize personal and team productivity, coach engineers on time management and deep work practices, and create environments that protect focus time while meeting business needs.

EDUCATION:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related industry field with 10+ years of relevant experience. Deep technical expertise with a proven track record of organization-wide technical leadership.

Work Location Assignment: Hybrid

Pfizer is an equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable equal employment opportunity legislation in each jurisdiction in which it operates.

Information & Business Tech