Director, Data and AI Product Owner, Research

Job Description

At Gilead, we’re creating a healthier world for all people. For more than 35 years, we’ve tackled diseases such as HIV, viral hepatitis, COVID‑19 and cancer – working relentlessly to develop therapies that help improve lives and to ensure access to these therapies across the globe. We continue to fight against the world’s biggest health challenges, and our mission requires collaboration, determination and a relentless drive to make a difference.

Every member of Gilead’s team plays a critical role in the discovery and development of life‑changing scientific innovations. Our employees are our greatest asset as we work to achieve our bold ambitions, and we’re looking for the next wave of passionate and ambitious people ready to make a direct impact. Join Gilead and help create possible, together.

Director, Data/AI Product Owner, Research

As part of our enterprise AI strategy to accelerate discovery and development of life‑changing therapies, we are seeking a Director, Data/AI Product Owner (Research) to lead AI/data product strategy across Research and Translation Sciences (Discovery, Preclinical, Translational, and Early Development).

In this leadership role, you will define and drive a portfolio-level product vision and strategy, shaping how AI is applied to transform scientific workflows, accelerate decision-making, and improve research productivity. You will serve as a strategic partner to senior scientific and functional leaders. Serving as the primary liaison between stakeholders and technical teams, you will translate ambiguous and evolving Research needs into a clear, prioritized product roadmap, define success metrics tied to measurable business outcomes and influence both near-term delivery and longer-range data and AI platform evolution. As the IT product owner, you will own the product vision, roadmap and stakeholder engagement for AI-enabled reporting, planning and analytics use cases while understanding the technical architecture required to deliver solutions.

Reporting to the Senior Director, Data & AI, you will oversee a portfolio of AI-enabled products and guide cross-functional teams in delivering high-value solutions.

This position is based in Foster City, CA (hybrid‑eligible).

Key Responsibilities

• Define and lead product strategy and multi‑year roadmap for AI-enabled research capabilities.
• Partner with senior Research leaders to identify high-impact AI opportunities, identify pain points, and advanced analytics opportunities, and develop compelling business cases
• Lead and mentor Product Owners and Product Managers. Prioritize the product backlog based on business value, risk, technical feasibility, and alignment with enterprise data and AI strategy.
• Establish and scale product operating model for consistency in delivery.
• Translate business objectives into clear product requirements and backlog items, incorporating data architecture, platform constraints, and scalability considerations.
• Own the end‑to‑end product vision and multi‑year roadmap for a portfolio of AI-enabled capabilities for Research decision-support, balancing enterprise priorities, platform constraints and value realization.
• Align solutions with data architecture, AI/ML capabilities, and platforms.
• Define and track success metrics such as cost reduction, productivity gains, user adoption, and satisfaction; use insights to guide continuous improvement.
• Drive change management and user adoption, including designing for user experience, stakeholder communications, training strategies, and feedback loops.
• Own the vendor and partner strategy for product support, including external development capacity and AI/LLM capabilities, in coordination with IT and Procurement.
• Identify gaps between current‑state capabilities and target‑state solutions, influencing Databricks, AWS, and data platform evolution in partnership with technical leaders.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to research leadership, applying strong business and financial acumen to evaluate trade‑offs and recommend data‑ and AI‑driven solutions.

Key Skills & Experience

• Bachelor’s with 12+ years or Master’s/PhD with 10+ years in relevant field.
• Deep understanding of drug discovery and development.
• Demonstrated experience as a Product Owner or Product Manager, with a strong track record of translating business needs into scalable data and AI solutions.
• Strong stakeholder management and influence skills, including the ability to operate as a trusted advisor to senior research leaders.
• Demonstrated business and financial acumen with the ability to evaluate ROI, cost-to-value trade-offs and long-term platform investments.
• Solid understanding of data and AI architecture concepts, with the ability to discuss design options and trade‑offs with engineering and data science teams.
• Familiarity modern data platforms such as Databricks and AWS.
• Proven experience working in Agile/Scrum environments, using metrics‑driven approaches to guide prioritization and delivery.

Optional Differentiators

• Experience with AI/ML in drug discovery.
• Exposure to generative AI use cases.
• Familiarity with scientific platforms (ELN, Assay Management, Scientific Research, LIMS, HPC systems).