Job Description
At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We’re looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world. Organization Overview Lilly Catalyze360 is a comprehensive approach to enabling the early-stage biotech ecosystem by democratizing access to infrastructure, expertise, and resources. Through its interconnected pillars—Lilly Ventures, Lilly Gateway Labs, Lilly ExploR&D, and Lilly TuneLab—Catalyze360 strategically removes barriers that traditionally block bold science from becoming life-changing medicines, providing biotechs with flexible combinations of capital, physical lab space, R&D capabilities, AI/ML tools, and decades of enterprise learning. Lilly TuneLab is an artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) platform that provides biotech companies access to drug discovery models trained on years of Lilly's research data. Lilly estimates that this first release of AI models includes proprietary data obtained at a cost of over $1 billion, representing one of the industry's most valuable datasets used to train an AI system available to biotechnology companies. By integrating advanced in silico modelling and federated learning, we connect pioneering machine learning algorithms, substantial computational power, exclusive datasets, and Lilly’s domain-specific knowledge to drive innovation in drug discovery and facilitate access to optimal therapies for patients. Job Summary The Associate Director, Machine Learning Project Management will provide project management leadership for the TuneLab machine learning (ML) team across model development, product release cycles, and external partnerships. This role is essential to the successful scaling of our innovative AI/ML drug discovery platform and the broader Catalyze360 ecosystem. The ideal candidate will translate strategic vision into executable plans, drive day-to-day execution, and facilitate productive partnerships between the ML team and internal/external business partners. This role will collaborate closely with product, engineering, and business development workstreams to implement initiatives, track progress against strategic objectives, and manage external partnerships. Expertise in program management, stakeholder alignment, and problem-solving will be instrumental in navigating the complexities of scaling a first-of-its-kind collaborative AI/ML platform in the pharmaceutical industry. Key Responsibilities Project Management Partner with engineering to build and maintain the ML development workplan, track progress against milestones, and manage critical path and dependencies Own the ML team's operating cadence end-to-end, including agenda planning, meeting facilitation, driving timely decision-making, and minutes and action tracking Proactively identify, assess, and escalate risks and issues across ML model development and partner execution, driving mitigation plans and ensuring leadership has timely visibility into blockers before they impact delivery Operations & Reporting Build and maintain fit-for-purpose processes that improve ML team efficiency and support cross-functional collaboration with other TuneLab workstreams Drive continuous improvement within the ML team by leading release retrospectives and translating lessons learned into actionable process adjustments Create and maintain operational metrics, dashboards, and reporting frameworks, synthesizing ML progress, risks and milestones into leadership ready updates Support ML team resource tracking and capacity planning Alliance & Partner Management Own internal/external partner status updates, surface challenges, resolve/elevate problems and ensure clear, consistent communication Coordinate ML model deployment and hand-off activities across internal and external partners Support onboarding and integration of new internal/external partners into the ML team's operating model Minimum Requirements Education: Bachelor's degree in business, science, engineering, or related field Project Management: 3+ years of experience in program/project management, or equivalent experience in an operational or coordination role supporting machine learning, data science, or computational research teams, including proficiency