Advisor/Senior Advisor - Systems Architect - Lilly USA Commercial Tech

At Lilly, the work is demanding because patients are waiting. We unite caring with discovery to help make life better for people around the world, knowing that every decision, every detail, and every day matters. Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, our over 50,000 employees around the globe take on complex challenges to discover and deliver life-changing medicines, strengthen how health is understood and managed, and support the communities we serve. This is hard, urgent, selfless work—but it’s work worth doing. If you’re driven by purpose and ready to bring your best to work that truly matters for patients, we invite you to join us.

Lilly's Purpose

At Lilly, we unite caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We are a global healthcare leader headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. Our 35,000 employees around the world work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to our communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. We give our best effort to our work, and we put people first. We're looking for people who are determined to make life better for people around the world.

Role Overview

Lilly Bengaluru Technology Team is looking for a hands-on Enterprise Architect and Technologist who can go deep technically — designing, prototyping, and helping build enterprise tech platforms for scale, speed, and innovation. This is not a slide-deck architecture role: you'll be expected to get into the weeds of cloud infrastructure, AI/ML pipelines, data platforms, and application design, produce working Proofs-of-Value, and directly influence technical implementation decisions across the function.

What You Will Be Doing

Reporting to the Senior Director - Customer Tech Innovation India, you will design and validate enterprise technology solutions hands-on — researching emerging tools and frameworks, building Proofs-of-Concept/Value, and translating business use cases into concrete technical designs and implementation plans. The role has four technical pillars: architecting and prototyping solutions for key initiatives, providing deep technical oversight across the functional portfolio (code, infra, data models, integration patterns), owning technical relationships with engineering teams to drive delivery, and hands-on evaluation of new tools, platforms, and industry-leading technology.

This is a strategic and technically hands-on position responsible for architecting, building, and validating the technical direction for the respective technology function. Working directly with engineering teams, you will drive the modernization and delivery of advanced technologies — cloud infrastructure, AI/ML models, data pipelines, advanced analytics, and automation/agentic workflows — including writing reference implementations, reviewing code and designs, and unblocking technical delivery, not just setting direction on paper.

Working alongside global CTI Architecture leaders, and the functional engineering and product leaders in Lilly Bengaluru, you will build and own technical roadmaps end-to-end — from architecture diagrams and design docs down to POCs, pilots, and production rollout — for advanced analytics, AI transformation, machine learning, productivity, and automation initiatives.

You will informally lead and work day-to-day alongside a small team of engineers and security specialists — pairing on designs, reviewing implementations, and staying close enough to the technical details to make credible build-vs-buy and architecture calls.

How You Will Succeed

Hands-on / technical delivery

Build and validate Proofs-of-Concept/Proof-of-Value yourself — prototyping architectures, integrations, and AI/automation workflows before handing off to engineering teams for production build-out.

Review code, designs, and technical specs at a hands-on level (not just sign-off) for high-complexity or high-risk projects, catching architectural issues early.

Run the “Office of Architecture” for the assigned function, ensuring the team is working together to build and execute technologies of the future.

Establish and facilitate the planning activities associated with architecture that includes strategic architecture (2-5 year) roadmap development and management (for AI, Automation, Data & Analytics, Application, and Technology), long-range plan inputs, function specific reference architecture definition and management, and application / technology optimization.

Facilitate, participate, and enhance both functional and central level architecture governance that includes project architecture consultation/technical leadership (particularly those that are highly complex, have a high degree of risk, or have multiple affiliate or global dependencies), project triage and as appropriate architecture reviews at a project/solution level from inception through execution, overall portfolio governance (including a functional portfolio view of dependencies, risks, and constraints), and functional level reference architecture governance (principles, reference models, standards, decision frameworks, patterns, implementation guides, etc.).

Lead innovation activities across the function. This includes but not limited to: innovation, research, Proof-of-Value (POV).

Make complex technical decisions in partnership with global Technology at Lilly and Enterprise Business Architecture team balancing business priorities and needs, enterprise business architecture principals and respective regulations.

Implement a technology architecture roadmap and future strategy (Modernization of functional architecture – Platform, Information, and Application).

Governance, influence & stakeholder management

Lead large scale/highly technically complex / transformational programs across the function (Omni-Channel engagement, AI transformation Technology Modernization, Advanced Analytics etc.)

Actively promote good architectural principles and practices, looking for opportunities to go global where possible and maximize re-use.

Serve as the liaison to Global and enterprise Technology at Lilly Architecture, representing function from both Business and IT perspectives, ensuring appropriate consideration of the functional priorities are factored into the global architecture. This includes participating on the Global and Lilly Bengaluru - Technology at Lilly Architecture Forum.

Maintain awareness of industry trends, including threats and exploits, and communicate relevant risk to business and security leaders.

Ensure Enterprise Business and Functional Architecture principles and practices remain appropriate to evolving Lilly business / Technology at Lilly strategies and when differences arise, proactively influence changes as necessary. Where gaps exist, proactively seek to provide guidance and a solution.

Establish a strong network of influence with Enterprise Business Architecture community and global Technology at Lilly architecture community, and with Information Security community.

Establish good vendor relationships with key local and global strategic and innovative vendors in technology.

Provide advice on technical aspects of system development and integration (including requests for changes, deviations from specifications, etc.) and ensures that relevant technical strategies, policies, standards, and practices are applied correctly.

Ensure that business requirements are well mapped / incorporated into system design and the appropriate technology, skill and tool are chosen and aligned.

Proactively identify and determine cases of Proof of Concept/Proof of Value and set the direction and approach to achieve.

Influence the key capability leaders throughout the business and Technology at Lilly in the technical direction and customer experience strategies developed and stewarded through Technology at Lilly Global Shared Service organizations and global architecture.

Maintain an architecture status scorecard (Governance, POC/POV, Modernization, and Alignment with principals), measure, and improve/upgrade the current technical/operational status. Share with stakeholders.

Communicate the technology strategy with local and global leadership and ensure sponsorship and support for the direction.

Informal supervisory responsibility to coach and guide a small team of technologists.

Serves as a coach/mentor to those pursuing a technical career path.

Capture and share best-practices across all business units and geographies.

Serve as the primary point of architectural communication for functional technical resources.

Qualifications

Bachelor's Degree or equivalent in Information Technology or related field, 10+ years’ hands-on work experience including deep technical expertise across infrastructure, application engineering, cloud platforms, data, and AI/ML — not purely advisory or governance-focused experience. Demonstrated ability to personally design, prototype, and validate architectures (POCs/POVs) rather than only reviewing others' designs. Comfortable working in code, cloud consoles, and technical design tools day-to-day, in addition to communicating with business stakeholders. Experience in a business affiliate (ideally from within Lilly). Strong written and verbal communication skills, with proven ability to translate technical detail into business-appropriate communication and vice versa. Ability to work autonomously in ambiguous, fast-moving technical environments. Proven track record of shipping complex technical programs — from architecture through implementation and production rollout, not just roadmap documents. Strong learning agility to rapidly pick up and hands-on evaluate new tools, frameworks, and platforms. Ability to influence technical direction with engineering teams and leadership up to AVP (M4) and IO (M5) level, grounded in technical credibility. Experience with portfolio management and formal project management methodologies, agile frameworks (Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, etc.). High intellectual curiosity and a builder's mindset — genuinely hands-on with technology, not just strategy. Solid understanding of privacy and security regulations as they apply to system design and implementation.

Technical Skills (Hands-On)

Cloud platforms: AWS / Azure / GCP — architecture, IaC, and hands-on deployment experience.

AI/ML & Agentic systems: model integration, MCP/agent architectures, automation pipelines.

Data & analytics: data pipeline design, integration patterns, advanced analytics tooling.

Application & integration architecture: APIs, microservices, enterprise integration (e.g. MuleSoft or equivalent).

Security & governance tooling: threat modeling, secure architecture review, compliance-aware design.

DevOps/engineering practices: CI/CD, code review, infrastructure automation.

Other Details

Position requires up to 10% Travel.

Position located in Bengaluru, India working in a hybrid model.

Lilly is dedicated to helping individuals with disabilities to actively engage in the workforce, ensuring equal opportunities when vying for positions. If you require accommodation to submit a resume for a position at Lilly, please complete the accommodation request form (https://careers.lilly.com/us/en/workplace-accommodation) for further assistance. Please note this is for individuals to request an accommodation as part of the application process and any other correspondence will not receive a response.

Lilly does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, protected veteran status, disability or any other legally protected status.

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