Senior Director, Engineering

Company Description

About AbbVie

AbbVie's mission is to discover and deliver innovative medicines and solutions that solve serious health issues today and address the medical challenges of tomorrow. We strive to have a remarkable impact on people's lives across several key therapeutic areas including immunology, oncology and neuroscience - and products and services in our Allergan Aesthetics portfolio. For more information about AbbVie, please visit us at . Follow @abbvie on LinkedIn, Facebook , Instagram , X and YouTube.

Job Description

Purpose:

The Director, Engineering, will lead the design and engineering efforts for large, global, strategic projects with a TIC >$2B, to enable adoption of best-in-class technology and engineering practices. The incumbent will be responsible for delivery of the engineering content for the projects and interfaces with operations, procurement and construction functions to ensure adherence to project priorities and schedules. The incumbent will drive transformational performance in delivering the engineering content of Strategic projects through accelerated timelines taking advantage of digital technologies, adoption of best-in-class technologies ensuring that the design will deliver a safe, reliable, maintainable best-in-class operation. This position supports multiple strategic projects and ensuring cross-functional alignment and communication in a matrix organization with project leads along with other Operations and external functions is key to success. The incumbent will report to VP, Strategic Capital Deployment in the Operations Transformation organization.

Responsibilities:

• Lead a team of Subject matter experts to drive engineering schedules of selected A&E consultants
• Ensure deliverables are reviewed, approved and issued for design or construction to ensure that the project procurement and construction activities proceed without any interruption
• The Director – Project Engineering provides strategic leadership and oversight for engineering execution across large-scale pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical capital projects, including manufacturing facilities, laboratories, cleanroom environments, and supporting utilities infrastructure.
• Responsible for leading multidisciplinary engineering teams and managing global engineering partners to ensure delivery of high-quality, GMP-compliant facility and process designs that meet business objectives for safety, quality, cost, and schedule.
• Operating within the company’s capital project governance and stage-gate framework, the Director, Project engineering ensures engineering activities are effectively integrated across project phases—from concept development through design, construction, commissioning, qualification, and operational readiness.
• Establish engineering execution strategies aligned with corporate engineering standards and global best practices
• Ensure consistency of engineering approaches across projects and sites
• Ensure designs support long-term operability, maintainability, and lifecycle performance of manufacturing assets.
• Drive timely delivery of engineering design packages aligned with overall project schedules.
• Drive procurement process including technical bid analysis and evaluation and testing of vendor packages including FAT, SAT
• Ensure effective integration across engineering disciplines and alignment with construction, procurement, and commissioning activities.
• Provide technical leadership for complex design decisions and cross-functional engineering issues.
• Ensure contractors deliver engineering work consistent with company standards, quality expectations, and regulatory requirements.
• Monitor contractor performance, deliverables quality, and resource utilization.
• Ensure efficient coordination between contractor teams and internal engineering resources.
• Oversee engineering budgets and resource plans across the project lifecycle.
• Ensure efficient utilization of both internal and contractor engineering resources.
• Support development of capital cost estimates and engineering schedules.
• Identify and mitigate risks that could impact project cost or timeline.
• Establish and maintain project governance, reporting structures, and decision-making frameworks, ensuring continuous alignment with stakeholders
• Lead integrated project teams across engineering, construction, CQV, quality, manufacturing
• Ensure alignment of facility design with long-term manufacturing network strategy and product pipeline requirements.
• Oversee facility design for aseptic processing operations, including cleanroom classifications, contamination control strategy, filling systems, lyophilization, and sterile formulation
• Ensure design supports qualification, regulatory approval and operational excellence from day one.
• Manage capital expenditure including cost forecasting, change management, and financial reporting
• Establish a risk-based CQV strategy that leverages digital technologies and enables accelerated timeline of facility and equipment qualification
• Identify and mitigate technical, regulatory, schedule, and supply chain risks associated with large-scale pharmaceutical capital projects with plans for what-if scenarios
• Build and lead a high-performing project organization including program managers, engineering leads, construction managers, CQV leads, and project controls professionals.
• Foster a culture of safety, accountability, collaboration, and operational excellence.

Qualifications

• BS, Engineering or equivalent technical degree; Master’s degree in Engineering preferred
• 20+ years of experience as a Senior Engineering / Projects / Operations Leader across multiple technologies.
• Proven leadership experience in engineering of biopharmaceutical mega-capital projects ($500MM – $1B+)
• Deep knowledge of engineering systems and cGMP requirements in a biopharmaceutical facility
• Proven inclusive management and leadership capabilities of large cross-functional teams and the ability to effectively interact and communicate with senior leadership and executives from strategic partners and authorities
• Demonstrated experience managing Engineering contractors and global equipment vendors
• Results-oriented leadership with outstanding negotiation skills and risk-based decision making is required
• Ability to mentor and develop next generation of leaders
• Travel within the US outside the US for reviews/workshops/visits to vendor facilities will be required

Additional Information

Applicable only to applicants applying to a position in any location with pay disclosure requirements under state or local law: ​

• The compensation range described below is the range of possible base pay compensation that the Company believes in good faith it will pay for this role at the time of thisposting based on the job grade for this position. Individual compensation paid within this range will depend on many factors including geographic location,and we may ultimately pay more or less than the posted range. This range may be modified in the future. ​

• We offer a comprehensive package of benefits including paid time off (vacation, holidays, sick), medical/dental/vision insurance and 401(k) to eligible employees.​

• This job is eligible to participate in our long-term incentive programs. ​

Note: No amount of pay is considered to be wages or compensation until such amount is earned, vested, and determinable. The amount and availability of any bonus, commission,incentive, benefits, or any other form of compensation and benefits that are allocable to a particular employee remains in the Company's sole and absolute discretion unless anduntil paid and may be modified at the Company’s sole and absolute discretion, consistent with applicable law.

AbbVie is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to operating with integrity, driving innovation, transforming lives and serving our community.  Equal Opportunity Employer/Veterans/Disabled.

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