Associate Director, Data Operations and Issue Management Lead
Novartis
Summary
As the Associate Director, Data Operations & Issue Management, you will lead efforts that ensure enterprise data products remain stable, trusted, and business-ready. In this highly visible role, you'll drive issue resolution, operational governance, and continuous improvement across critical data products, partnering with data engineering, data quality, analytics, and business teams to maintain operational excellence and deliver trusted data at scale.
Job description
Key Responsibilities
- Lead enterprise data operations and issue management across certified data products and critical data capabilities.
- Manage issue intake, triage, prioritization, escalation, tracking, and resolution to ensure operational stability.
- Monitor service level agreements, issue trends, remediation progress, and operational performance metrics.
- Partner with data engineering teams to resolve pipeline failures, delivery issues, and production incidents.
- Collaborate with data quality teams to address quality issues, root causes, and corrective actions.
- Coordinate cross-functional resolution efforts across business, technology, vendor, and data teams.
- Escalate critical risks, dependencies, and service disruptions to ensure timely leadership visibility.
- Lead operational reviews, issue governance forums, remediation checkpoints, and post-incident follow-ups.
- Produce dashboards and reporting that provide insight into risks, service levels, and operational performance.
- Drive continuous improvement by identifying automation opportunities, reducing recurring issues, and enhancing operational processes.
Essential Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Data Management, Information Systems, Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Analytics, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in data operations, issue management, data governance, data quality, data engineering operations, service management, or program operations.
- Experience managing operational issue logs, incident workflows, SLA tracking, escalation routines, and remediation plans.
- Strong understanding of data products, data pipelines, data quality controls, metadata, lineage, data governance, and production support processes.
- Experience working with cross-functional teams across data engineering, governance, analytics, business, vendors, and technology platforms.
- Familiarity with tools such as Jira, ServiceNow, Confluence, Smartsheet, Excel, Power BI, Tableau, or similar.
- Ability to analyze issue trends, root causes, SLA performance, operational risks, and recurring gaps.
- Strong stakeholder management skills with ability to coordinate across teams and influence timely resolution.
- Strong communication skills, including ability to summarize operational risks and issues for leadership.
- Excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, follow-through, and comfort managing multiple priorities.
Desirable Requirements
- Experience with post-go-live support, hypercare, incident management, or service transition.
- Familiarity with regulated data environments, pharma commercial data, or compliance-driven operations.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree in Data Management, Information Systems, Business, Computer Science, Engineering, Analytics, or a related field.
- 5+ years of experience in data operations, issue management, data governance, data quality, data engineering operations, service management, or program operations.
- Experience managing operational issue logs, incident workflows, SLA tracking, escalation routines, and remediation plans.
- Strong understanding of data products, data pipelines, data quality controls, metadata, lineage, data governance, and production support processes.
- Experience working with cross-functional teams across data engineering, governance, analytics, business, vendors, and technology platforms.
- Familiarity with tools such as Jira, ServiceNow, Confluence, Smartsheet, Excel, Power BI, Tableau, or similar.
- Ability to analyze issue trends, root causes, SLA performance, operational risks, and recurring gaps.
- Strong stakeholder management skills with ability to coordinate across teams and influence timely resolution.
- Strong communication skills, including ability to summarize operational risks and issues for leadership.
- Excellent organizational skills, attention to detail, follow-through, and comfort managing multiple priorities.
- Experience with post-go-live support, hypercare, incident management, or service transition.
- Familiarity with regulated data environments, pharma commercial data, or compliance-driven operations.
Benefits
- Health insurance
- Life insurance
- Disability benefits
- 401(k) with company contribution and match
- Performance-based cash incentive
- Annual equity awards
- Generous time off package
- Vacation
- Personal days
- Holidays
Company overview
Novartis is a global pharmaceutical company headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, dedicated to reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As an innovative medicines company, Novartis focuses on developing high-value treatments that address society's greatest disease burdens through technology leadership in research and development. The company operates across five core therapeutic areas: cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases; immunology; neuroscience; oncology; and hematology. With a workforce of approximately 75,883 employees worldwide, Novartis reaches nearly 300 million patients across 118 countries. The company leverages advanced technology platforms including targeted protein degradation, cell therapy, gene therapy, radioligand therapy, and xRNA to develop breakthrough treatments. Novartis maintains a strong portfolio of oncology drugs and generics while continuously expanding its pipeline through strategic acquisitions and internal research. The company's commitment extends beyond drug development to ensuring global access to medical innovations through novel access approaches and patient assistance programs.