Head, Innovation Accelerator Data Science

About this role

This role is based in the Innovation Accelerator (IA) team, the innovation engine and connective tissue for Design, Data and Data Science innovation strategy within Product Development Data Sciences (PDD). We translate our long-term PDD vision into actionable strategy, shaping and prioritizing innovative cross-functional use cases that span PDD, PD, and Pharma. As both integrators and incubators, we explore, prototype, and help productize solutions to deliver impact in close partnership with internal Roche teams and external collaborators. With a mindset rooted in openness, value creation, and adaptability, we navigate the innovation ecosystem to drive transformative impact and future readiness across the organization.

The Opportunity: The Head of Innovation Accelerator Data Science is responsible for driving technical excellence across design, data and data science innovation programs for Roche Product Development. This role combines deep subject matter expertise in data science and software development with people leadership and portfolio oversight. The Head of IA Data Science ensures strong technical execution, guides architectural decisions, and aligns technical capacity with strategic goals. As a direct report to the Function Head, this position plays a critical role in shaping the innovation roadmap, scaling capabilities, and growing high-performing technical teams.

• You provide technical leadership across early exploration and productization phases of innovation projects, ensuring alignment with departmental goals and enterprise direction

• You act as subject matter expert and single point of escalation/problem resolution for applied data science and software engineering within the innovation portfolio

• You influence PDD data, design and data science (3D) strategy and in-silico strategy & roadmap(s) through strategic technical leadership/expertise

• You make architectural decisions independently and ensure adherence to best practices for scalability, performance, reliability, and compliance

• You oversee execution quality, technical risk management, and project velocity across multiple high-impact workstreams and domains

• You establish and enforce technical standards, enabling reuse, modularity, and robust design across solution development

• You lead technical capacity planning and resource deployment within the team, prioritizing based on departmental strategy and portfolio needs

• You collaborate with cross-functional and enterprise partners to translate innovation opportunities into feasible, impactful, and technically sound solutions

• You drive the Innovation Accelerator portfolio through contribution to governance, resource planning, and progress reviews

• You identify and integrate new technologies and platforms, applying functional expertise and organizational context to maximize department performance

• You ensure traceability, reproducibility, and risk mitigation through robust documentation and engineering practices across all technical deliveries

• You manage a multidisciplinary team of specialists and junior leaders (e.g., data scientists, software engineers), ensuring accountability for delivery, performance, and development

• You oversee hiring, onboarding, workforce planning, and succession management aligned to departmental capabilities and strategic growth areas

• You coach and mentor team members to enhance their individual performance and long-term potential, developing future technical leaders across roles and backgrounds

• You foster a high-performance, inclusive culture focused on collaboration, ownership, and continuous improvement

• You set development goals, conduct performance evaluations, and guide career progression based on business priorities and professional aspirations

• You manage team deployment and resource allocation across a complex portfolio of innovation projects, balancing individual growth with business needs

• You execute short-term department plans by managing priorities, budget, and capacity in coordination with function leadership

• You influence senior stakeholders and functional leadership to secure alignment, resources, and sponsorship for technical priorities

Who you are: • You have an advanced degree (Master’s or PhD) in Computer Science, Data Science, Statistics, Engineering, or a related technical field

• You have 15+ years of hands-on experience in software engineering, data science, or technical innovation, ideally within R&D or regulated environments

• You have 4+ years in a leadership role managing multidisciplinary technical teams

• You have proven experience driving technology delivery from prototyping to scaled implementation

• You have deep expertise in modern data and software development technologies and architectural practices

• You are proficient with Python or R, and ML libraries such as scikit-learn, XGBoost, TensorFlow, or PyTorch

• You have a strong understanding of supervised/unsupervised learning, statistical modeling, and experimental design

• You are familiar with software development practices including version control, testing, and collaborative coding

• You have experience running simulations or analyses in a high-performing computing environment

• You have knowledge of and experience with four or more of the following: • Epidemiology, including causal inference methods for observational real world data (RWD) or real world evidence (RWE)

• Bayesian statistics

• Decision theory, including multiple criteria decision analysis (MCDA), utility elicitation, decision simulation models, or Value of Information

• Clinical outcomes research using data from electronic health records (EHR)

• Discovery mechanisms and evidence generation pathways for novel biomarkers and risk scores

• Interpretable machine learning

• Methods to incorporate knowledge graphs, ontologies, or other forms of structured information

• Probabilistic programming languages

• Complex or innovative clinical

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