Director, AI/ML Engineering

About the role

The Director (M4) leads major divisional functions or corporate sub-functions, providing enterprise-level strategic direction, long-range planning, and operational leadership across multiple related disciplines. This role analyzes external business environments to anticipate trends, influence strategy, and recommend growth opportunities for the business unit. It directs managers ensuring operational excellence, cross-functional integration, and execution of high-impact initiatives. The Director is financially accountable for operating plans, budgets, and forecasts, and manages complex organizational performance across services. As a senior enterprise advisor, the Director interfaces with leaders to shape integrated business strategies and ensure alignment of products, solutions, and capabilities with organizational priorities. The role leads talent pipelines, strengthens leadership benches, and manages significant conflicts and disciplinary matters. It drives continuous improvement, optimizes cross-functional workflows, and ensures strategic communication across stakeholder groups.

Responsibilities

• Proven leadership of AI/ML engineering organizations through a management layer — direct experience managing people, not just individual senior engineers or a single flat team.
• Finance/P&L ownership at scale — has managed and grown an operating budget/forecast, not just consumed one handed down.
• Deep technical credibility in AI/ML systems — enough hands-on depth (ML lifecycle, data architecture, LLMs deployment at scale) to make and defend build/buy/architecture decisions with engineering teams and with executives.
• Experience operating in a regulated or high-compliance enterprise environment (healthcare and pharma distribution).
• Track record of translating business strategy into a multi-year technical roadmap and being held accountable for its execution.

Requirements

• Degree or equivalent experience.
• Typically requires 12+ years of professional experience and 4+ years of management experience.

Skills

• 5+ years of experience in Responsible AI practices, model risk management, data governance, audit readiness.
• Partnering with Product, Data Engineering, Platform/Infra, Security, Legal/Compliance, and BU leaders.
• Experience with enterprise-scale cloud AI/ML platforms (Azure services, Langchain/LangGraph, Python etc.) at production scale.
• Succession planning, performance calibration, handling significant conflict and disciplinary matters.
• Strong Vendor & Partner Management — Build-vs-buy analysis, negotiating with cloud/AI vendors.
• KPI/metrics frameworks, SLA management across services and programs, continuous improvement methodology.
• Business impact scope — Has supported multiple business units, product lines, or customer segments concurrently.

Nice to Have

• Domain expertise in healthcare, pharmaceutical distribution, or supply chain preferred.

Candidate must be authorized to work in the U.S, now or in the future, without the support from McKesson.

Pay

Our Base Pay Range for this position is $196,100 - $326,900. This is determined by several factors, including performance, experience and skills, equity, regular job market evaluations, and geographical markets. In addition to base pay, other compensation, such as an annual bonus or long-term incentive opportunities may be offered.

Benefits

We are proud to offer a competitive compensation package at McKesson as part of our Total Rewards. For more information regarding benefits at McKesson, please click here.