Director, Data Architecture & Engineering at Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Director, Data Architecture & Engineering

Boston, MA, USA Req #260

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Who We Are:

Who We Are:
Xenon Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:XENE ) is a neuroscience-focused biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing, and commercializing innovative therapeutics to improve the lives of people living with neurological and psychiatric disorders. We are looking for great people who thrive in a respectful, collaborative, inclusive, and productive culture to join the Xenon team. What We Do:
We are advancing an exciting product pipeline to address indications with high unmet medical need, including epilepsy and depression. Our flagship azetukalner program represents the most advanced potassium channel modulator in clinical development for multiple indications. Building upon the positive results and compelling data from our Phase 2b “X-TOLE” study in adult patients with focal epilepsy, our Phase 3 epilepsy program includes multiple clinical trials evaluating azetukalner in patients with focal onset seizures and primary generalized tonic-clonic seizures. In 2024, we are planning to initiate a Phase 3 azetukalner program in major depressive disorder, based on topline data from our Phase 2 “X-NOVA” clinical trial. In addition, we are proud of the leading-edge science coming out of our discovery labs, including early-stage research programs that leverage our extensive ion channel expertise and drug discovery capabilities to identify validated drug targets and develop new product candidates. Backed by a strong balance sheet to support our growth plans, we continue to build a fully integrated, premier neuroscience company with strong discovery, clinical development, corporate, and commercial operations.
About the Role:

We are seeking a Director, Data Architecture & Engineering (DA&E), to join our team. This role will be responsible for driving the development and implementation of an enterprise data strategy and architecture, including implementation of systems, tools and processes to enable critical use cases in data lineage and lifecycle management, analytics and reporting, systems integration, and process automation. The Director will collaborate with IT business partners and colleagues in key functions to identify current and future data-related challenges and pain points, and will design, build, and operationalize the infrastructure to address those challenges.The relevant infrastructure will include elements such as an enterprise data catalog, data governance (including conventions and standards), data quality, master data management, application integration, data exchange, ETL/ELT, data modeling, and related components. The Director will have primary responsibility for driving an enterprise approach to managing data, including leveraging common tools across functions and use cases, and ensuring that data is available, reliable and secure across the organization.

This Director, Data Architecture & Engineering (DA&E) role is a hands-on position with the expectation that their team will expand over time as new systems are implemented and as the IT operating model evolves. During this period of rapid growth and evolution, the Director may be assigned additional responsibilities (beyond the core responsibilities described) based on company needs, the individual’s experience and expertise, and the availability of resources within IT.

This position reports to the Senior Vice President, Information Systems and will be located in the Boston, MA, USA location. The level of the position will be commensurate with the candidate’s education and industry experience.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Lead a collaborative effort to define an overall enterprise data strategy and architecture, beginning with key principles and best practices, evolving to address specific company needs, and focusing on critical data and use cases.
• Develop and execute against a technology roadmap for data engineering to address critical challenges and pain points – i.e. identify, sequence, and deploy relevant enterprise platforms, tools, and capabilities to evolve Xenon’s data infrastructure and address critical needs.
• Collaborate with IT colleagues and key functional stakeholders to identify and prioritize current and future data-related challenges and pain points, ensure effective and secure data exchange with external service providers, and to facilitate the design and adoption of effective data governance and lifecycle management processes and tools to control data lineage.
• Establish an internal community of data experts to exchange ideas and best practices, align on enterprise solutions and approaches, and drive adoption.
• Build and own a future middleware platform to enable effective application integration and data flows.
• Deliver and drive adoption of user-friendly tools for data management, analytics, and reporting.
• Develop a support model for enterprise data engineering platforms, including internal resources and managed service providers.
• Establish standards for documentation of data flows, meta data management, and data quality management.
• Manage vendor relationships (e.g. software and service providers) in the context of both project delivery and ongoing operations to maximize value to Xenon.
• As a member of the IT Leadership Team, contribute to the development and execution of the strategy to evolve the overall IT operating model, including new structure, processes, and ways of working.
• Develop and propose short- and long-term objectives for the function in accordance with overall Company strategies and plans.
• Plan and manage budget proposals and approved budgets in accordance with the Company’s strategic and operating plans and Finance policies.
• Recruit, lead, direct, develop, coach and evaluate direct reports, if any, in accordance with the Company’s Human Resource policies and practices.
• Act in accordance with Company policies, including, for example, the Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and ensure policies are understood and followed by direct reports, if any.
• Other duties as assigned.

QUALIFICATIONS:

• Minimum undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems, or related discipline.
• At least 10 years of progressive information technology experience in a similar role, with at least 3 years in a leadership/management role.
• Demonstrated ability to set direction and lead while simultaneously performing hands-on work.
• Experience working in a regulated environment including working knowledge of system validation requirements and frameworks.
• Domain knowledge of the work performed in research, development, and commercial functions, including the ability to effectively collaborate with functional stakeholders.
• Experience driving enterprise data strategy and architecture, developing technology roadmaps, and implementing solutions to enable control and agility.
• Broad technical skills including data modeling, SQL, databases, ETL/ELT, scripting, and commercial cloud service offerings (e.g. Azure, AWS, Databricks, Snowflake).
• Experience with middleware / IPaaS platform(s) such as Boomi, TIBCO, MuleSoft.
• Proven ability to diagnose and solve problems, and to identify opportunities to more effectively leverage technology and data to drive agility, efficiency, insights, and compliance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain highly technical information in a concise and effective manner to an audience of varying technical aptitude.
• Strong interpersonal skills that support quickly building rapport with IT colleagues, functional stakeholders, and external vendors; ability to manage competing interests in a professional, collaborative, and solution-driven manner.
• Ability to work flexibly in a fast-paced environment with a strong work ethic and positive attitude.
• Demonstrated ability to lead continuous improvements in development processes and practices.

The base salary range for this role is $199,700 to $223,800 USD; we will consider above this range for exceptional candidates. Base salary is determined by a combination of factors including, but not limited to, education and other qualifications, years of relevant experience, and internal equity.

Our Total Rewards program includes base salary, target bonus, and stock options, as well as a full range of benefits including medical, dental, vision, short-& long-term disability, accidental death & dismemberment, and life insurance programs, Employee Assistance Program, travel insurance, and retirement savings programs with company matching contributions.

Xenon encourages time to rest and re-charge through vacation, personal days, sick days, and an end-of-year company shutdown. Xenon highly values employee development and has an expanding Training, Learning & Development program, including a Tuition Assistance program for advanced degrees.

US positions only:Xenon Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. participates in the E-Verify program in all states in which we hire. Learn more about the E-Verify program here .

To apply for this position, click Apply Now to complete the application. We thank all applicants for their interest; however, due to the volume of applicants, only those chosen for interview will be contacted.