Note: The job is a remote job and is open to candidates in USA. Novartis is a pharmaceutical company seeking an Associate Director, Data Operations and Issue Management Lead to ensure enterprise data products remain stable, trusted, and business-ready. The role leads issue resolution, operational governance, cross-functional coordination, performance reporting, and continuous improvement across critical data products and capabilities.
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
Skills
- * 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
- Performance-based cash incentive
- Eligibility to be considered for annual equity awards, depending on the level of the role
- For US-based eligible employees: comprehensive health benefits
- For US-based eligible employees: life benefits
- For US-based eligible employees: disability benefits
- For US-based eligible employees: 401(k) with company contribution and match
- For US-based eligible employees: vacation, personal days, holidays and other leaves
Company Overview