[Hiring] Senior Forward Deployed Solutions Architect @SAS

Role Description

SAS is seeking a Senior Forward Deployed Solutions Architect, Large Pharma, a forward-deployed, hands-on technical expert dedicated to a strategic, US-based pharmaceutical customer. In this role, you will operate as an embedded consultant and forward-deployed engineer, working closely with business, data science, engineering, and IT teams at the customer site in New Jersey.

Your mission is to cocreate innovative analytics, AI-driven, agent-based, and data-centric solutions on top of SAS technology, directly within the customer’s operational environment. You will accelerate innovation and time-to-value by applying, composing, and extending SAS capabilities to address high-impact pharmaceutical sponsor challenges.

This role is designed for longer-term customer engagement to enable sustained capability development and deep business impact.

• Serve as a forward-deployed, customer-embedded consultant working directly with business and technical teams within large pharmaceutical organizations.
• Lead time-boxed innovation sprints (typically ~12 weeks), with continuity across multiple sprints, to design and deliver analytics- and AI-enabled capabilities.
• Translate real-world business challenges into production-ready solutions built on SAS platforms and integrated into customer systems and workflows.
• Apply life sciences and pharmaceutical expertise to identify and solve problems across R&D, clinical development, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and commercial operations.
• Co-develop new analytical methods, metrics, and AI-driven approaches that deliver measurable improvements for sponsors and manufacturers.
• Bridge industry context and technical execution, ensuring solutions are innovative, compliant, and usable in regulated environments.
• Design and implement analytics pipelines, AI/ML workflows, agent-based approaches, and decisioning solutions using SAS technologies, APIs, and enterprise integrations.
• Rapidly prototype, iterate, and operationalize solutions with customer users, progressing from proof of value to scalable, production-ready capabilities.
• Partner closely with Sales, Industry Advisors, technical teams, Product Management and Customer Success to align embedded innovation with overall account strategy and support reuse across SAS.
• Clearly articulate business value, outcomes, and ROI, while providing structured feedback to SAS teams on customer needs, emerging use cases, and innovation opportunities.
• Embrace curiosity, passion, authenticity and accountability. These are our values and influence everything we do.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, Applied Mathematics, or a related field.
• Minimum 8 years of experience in life sciences/pharmaceutical consulting, applied analytics, data science engineering, or technical solution delivery roles.
• Strong hands-on experience building analytics- or AI-driven solutions in complex enterprise environments.
• Demonstrated ability to work embedded with customers, including on-site collaboration in New Jersey and comfort operating in ambiguous, fast-moving settings.
• Proven capability to translate business requirements into technical implementations that deliver real operational value.
• Equivalent combination of related education, training and experience may be considered in place of the above qualifications.

Requirements

• Broadening Business Value: Exploring customers’ underlying issues and needs that suggest broader solutions; maximizing the productiveness of sales interactions by building on customer cues to gain commitment to products, services, and solutions; articulating and promoting a path forward.
• Building Customer Loyalty: Meeting and exceeding internal or external customer expectations while cultivating relationships that secure commitment and trust.
• Customer Focus: Ensuring that the internal or external customer’s perspective is a driving force behind strategic priorities, business decisions, organizational processes, and individual activities; crafting and implementing service practices that meet customers’ and own organization’s needs; promoting and operationalizing customer service as a value.
• Ability to work on complex problems requiring simultaneous understanding of industry, data, and technology.
• Strong problem-solving skills and creative thinking in environments with evolving requirements.
• Capability to lead initiatives, define working approaches, and coordinate activities across business and technical stakeholders.
• Clear communication skills with the ability to explain advanced analytical or AI concepts in business terms.
• Strong relationship-building skills and comfort working across organizational boundaries.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, prescription, dental and vision plans.
• Medical plan options include:
  • PPO with low annual deductible and copays.
  • HDHP combined with a health savings account with a contribution from SAS (no access to on-site health care center).
• Onsite Health Care Center (HQ) that’s free to employees and family members enrolled in the PPO plan. There’s a pharmacy too! Not local to HQ? The pharmacy will ship prescriptions for no additional charge!
• An industry-leading 401k plan.
• Tuition Assistance Program and programs and resources to support your development.
• Generous time away including vacation time, a variety of paid holidays, and our much-loved U.S. Winter Wellness Break between December 25 and January 1.
• Volunteer Time Off, parental leave and unlimited paid sick days.
• Generous childcare benefits for all full-time employees.