Product Director, DevOps & CMO Performance

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. Within R&D Digital & Tech, the AI-led Development Operations domain — part of Development & CMO Tech — exists to turn development and study data into decisions, improving how programmes are planned, executed and monitored, and embedding AI-led decision-making into development operations at scale.

Mission Control is GSK's flagship product in this space. It brings together AI-driven analytics, statistical models and operational workflows to give development teams real-time insight into study and portfolio performance. Its capabilities span site selection optimisation, enrolment forecasting and modelling, risk detection and mitigation, and performance monitoring across studies and countries. Mission Control is delivered on a bi-weekly release cadence against a modular, microservices-based architecture, integrated with GSK's enterprise data hubs and development platforms.

We are seeking an experienced Senior Product Owner / Product Director to take end-to-end ownership of the technology delivery of Mission Control. This is a role for someone who wants to own a product rather than administer a backlog — setting technical direction, building and leading AI applications rather than merely consuming them, holding a multi-vendor delivery ecosystem to account, and working shoulder to shoulder with the Business Rep in DevOps Platform & Innovation to turn development operations problems into working, compliant, high-quality software.

This is a fast-moving, ultra-Agile environment. Direction is set from evidence rather than from annual plans, scope is reshaped mid-flight as learning emerges, and the pace of AI innovation means the roadmap is genuinely provisional. We are looking for someone who finds that energising rather than uncomfortable.

Key Responsibilities

Product Ownership & Technical Delivery Strategy

• Act as the accountable product owner for the Mission Control platform, owning the technology roadmap, backlog and release plan end to end from concept through to production.
• Translate the business product vision — set jointly with the Business Rep in DevOps Platform & Innovation — into a technical roadmap, epics, features and well-formed acceptance criteria.
• Prioritise the backlog against business value, technical risk, dependency and compliance constraints, and communicate prioritisation decisions transparently to stakeholders.
• Own and protect the bi-weekly release cadence, including release scope, go/no-go decisions and post-release review.
• Ensure alignment with GSK R&D Digital & Tech architecture standards, engineering practices and enterprise tooling.

AI Applications, Innovation & Model Integration

• Lead the development of AI applications end to end — from problem framing and experimentation through to productionisation, adoption and measured business value — rather than only integrating models built elsewhere.
• Own the technical integration of AI/ML and statistical models into Mission Control: enrolment forecasting, site selection optimisation, risk detection and performance prediction.
• Partner with data science, biostatistics and Data & AI engineering teams to define model interfaces, data contracts, acceptance thresholds, monitoring and retraining triggers.
• Drive an active innovation pipeline — identify emerging AI capabilities, run time-boxed experiments, kill what does not work quickly, and scale what does.
• Explore and apply agentic AI patterns and intelligent workflow automation where they create real value, with a clear-eyed view of their governance implications.
• Ensure AI-driven features are explainable, monitored in production, and delivered in line with GSK's AI governance and responsible AI standards.

Architecture & Enterprise Integration

• Work with solution and enterprise architects to evolve the modular, microservices-based Mission Control architecture, balancing delivery pace against technical debt.
• Own the technical dependency map across enterprise data hubs, development and study management systems and adjacent R&D platforms, and manage cross-team commitments accordingly.
• Ensure data quality, lineage and access controls meet GSK standards for regulated development data.

Vendor & Delivery Ecosystem Management

• Lead the day-to-day delivery relationship with strategic partners including TCS, Cognizant and Accenture — holding them to scope, throughput, quality and timeline commitments.
• Chair operational delivery governance; monitor velocity, defect rates and delivery predictability against agreed baselines, and escalate early and factually where performance drifts.
• Support Statement of Work definition and contribute to vendor performance review, in partnership with the line manager and procurement.

Quality, Compliance & Release Governance

• Ensure all delivery adheres to GxP requirements and GSK's computer system validation, quality and audit standards.
• Own the Definition of Done and the technical acceptance gate; ensure release records and validation artefacts are complete and filed on time.
• Work with QA and DevOps to strengthen automated testing, CI/CD and release reliability — so that moving fast and staying compliant are not in tension.

Why You?

Basic Qualification & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree, or equivalent professional experience, in Computer Science, Information Technology, Life Sciences, Engineering or a related field.
• Substantial experience as a Product Owner, Product Director, Product Manager or equivalent, owning a complex data or analytics platform end to end in a regulated environment.
• Demonstrable experience developing and leading AI applications end to end — from concept and experimentation through to production — together with a track record of driving related innovation through to adoption and measurable value.
• Practical understanding of how AI/ML and statistical models are built, validated, deployed, monitored and governed in production, sufficient to make credible technical trade-off decisions with data scientists and engineers.
• Open attitude to working in an ultra-Agile manner — comfortable with short cycles, rapid iteration, frequent changes of direction, and making decisions before all the information is available.
• Demonstrable track record of delivering on a short, predictable release cadence at enterprise scale.
• Strong working understanding of development operations — study start-up, site activation, patient enrolment and study performance monitoring.
• Experience leading and holding to account multi-vendor delivery ecosystems, including offshore and nearshore teams.
• Deep fluency in Agile product management and the full product lifecycle.
• Working knowledge of GxP, computer system validation and quality requirements applicable to regulated systems.
• Excellent stakeholder management and communication skills, with a proven ability to translate between technical and business audiences at senior level.
• Comfort operating in a matrixed, global organisation with ambiguity and competing priorities.

Desired

• Experience within GSK or another large pharmaceutical organisation's development or R&D technology environment.
• Hands-on background in building AI or data products — for example prototyping, prompt and agent design, evaluation frameworks, or MLOps — sufficient to be credible with an engineering team.
• Experience with AI governance frameworks and responsible AI practice.
• Working knowledge of agentic AI patterns and intelligent workflow automation, and a realistic view of where they add value.
• Familiarity with modern data platform and data fabric architectures, microservices and cloud-native delivery.
• Certification in product ownership or Agile methodologies (for example CSPO, SAFe Product Owner / Product Manager).
• Experience with Aha!, JIRA and enterprise portfolio management tooling.
• Prior experience taking over ownership of an established platform from an incumbent, and stabilising it.

Ready to apply?

If this role excites you, please submit your CV and a brief message about why you want to join. We look forward to hearing how you can help shape the future of DevOps and CMO performance at GSK.

Closing Date: 21st October 2026

Hybrid Working, min 2 days a week onsite.

Location: This role will temporarily be based at Stevenage. However, the Company plans to relocate its offices to Ware, UK. The location of this role will therefore subsequently change to Ware, UK in accordance with timelines to be set by the Company. The relocation is currently proposed to take effect by early 2029.”

Skills

Agile Methodology, Backlogs, Cross-Functional Teamwork, Design Thinking, DevOps, Process Diagrams, Product Strategies, Project Management, Requirements Gathering, Services Management, Software Development, User Experience (UX), User Research, User Story

 

 

Why GSK?

Uniting science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together.

GSK is a global biopharma company with a purpose to unite science, technology and talent to get ahead of disease together. We aim to positively impact the health of 2.5 billion people by the end of the decade, as a successful, growing company where people can thrive.

We get ahead of disease by preventing and treating it with innovation in specialty medicines and vaccines. We focus on four therapeutic areas: respiratory, immunology and inflammation; oncology; HIV; and infectious diseases – to impact health at scale.

People and patients around the world count on the medicines and vaccines we make, so we’re committed to creating an environment where our people can thrive and focus on what matters most. Our culture of being ambitious for patients, accountable for impact and doing the right thing is the foundation for how, together, we deliver for patients, shareholders and our people.

GSK is an Equal Opportunity Employer. This ensures that all qualified applicants will receive equal consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), parental status, national origin, age, disability, genetic information (including family medical history), military service or any basis prohibited under federal, state or local law.

We believe in an agile working culture for all our roles. If flexibility is important to you, we encourage you to explore with our hiring team what the opportunities are.

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