Director, AI Engineering

About Acadia Pharmaceuticals Acadia is committed to turning scientific promise into meaningful innovation that makes the difference for underserved neurological and rare disease communities around the world. Our commercial portfolio includes the first and only FDA-approved treatments for Parkinson’s disease psychosis and Rett syndrome. We are developing the next wave of therapeutic advancements with a robust and diverse pipeline that includes mid- to late-stage programs in Alzheimer’s disease psychosis and Lewy body dementia psychosis, along with earlier-stage programs that address other underserved patient needs. At Acadia, we’re here to be their difference. This hybrid position requires onsite attendance three days per week at one of our office locations in San Diego, CA, South San Francisco, CA, or Princeton, NJ

Position Summary

The Director, AI Engineering is a strategic technology leader responsible for shaping and advancing the enterprise AI application and agent ecosystem. This role owns the AI platform and agent framework layer that enables scalable, secure, and impactful AI-powered solutions across the organization. The successful candidate will drive the development of enterprise-grade capabilities including reusable agent templates, multi-agent orchestration, an internal agent publishing platform, self-service RAG solutions, tool and skill registries, prompt management, and evaluation and output validation frameworks. This leader will balance deep technical expertise with a passion for creating intuitive, low-code experiences that empower business users to independently build and deploy AI solutions. Partnering closely with IT, Cybersecurity, Enterprise Architecture, and business stakeholders, the Director will ensure the AI platform remains secure, governed, scalable, and aligned with organizational objectives while delivering measurable business value and accelerating AI adoption across the enterprise.

Primary Responsibilities

Architect and maintain the enterprise agent platform - the system through which agents are developed, published, versioned, and coordinated, using frameworks such as LangGraph, CrewAI, Anthropic Agents SDK, and OpenAI Agents SDK.

Engineer multi-agent coordination patterns enabling agents with distinct roles, data access, and functional scope to collaborate reliably on complex, multi-step business workflows.

Design and implement reusable agent templates, composable orchestration primitives, and agentic memory systems (short-term, long-term, episodic) that development teams and non-engineers can configure and deploy.

Build human-in-the-loop (HITL) escalation workflows and clearly defined agent action boundaries to ensure appropriate human oversight at high-risk decision points.

Lead the design and delivery of a self-service RAG builder, including ingestion pipelines, chunking, embedding, vector store integration, hybrid retrieval, and reranking surfaced through a low-code interface accessible to non-technical users.

Build and operate an enterprise tool and skill registry: a versioned catalog of APIs, functions, MCP servers, and data connectors that agents can securely discover and invoke, with schema contracts, authentication, and access controls.

Establish and manage the enterprise prompt management system with versioning, governance workflows, A/B testing, rollback capabilities, and domain-specific prompt libraries for commercial, medical, and R&D functions.

Own the evaluation and benchmarking methodology for agentic systems. Design rigorous, quantitative eval suites covering accuracy, faithfulness, groundedness, task completion, latency, cost, and safety. Implement automated regression detection in production.

Design and implement multi-layer guardrail frameworks including input/output validation, content moderation, hallucination detection, policy enforcement, and agent permission scoping aligned with AI governance policy and regulatory requirements.

Apply product thinking and user-centered design to platform tooling; track adoption metrics, gather user feedback, and iterate to reduce friction for non-engineer stakeholders across Commercial, Medical Affairs, R&D, and Corporate Functions.

Contribute to the enterprise AI strategy and portfolio roadmap; participate actively in the AI Governance Council providing expertise on agentic risk, safety, and platform governance.

Ensure all engineered solutions comply with global AI regulations, ethical AI standards, data privacy requirements (HIPAA, GDPR), applicable GxP processes, and enterprise security standards.

Mentor engineers and foster a culture of rigorous evaluation, responsible experimentation, and continuous improvement across the AI team.

Other responsibilities as assigned.

Education/Experience/Skills

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or a related technical discipline required; advanced degree preferred

8+ years of experience in AI/ML, software engineering, or a related field, including 4+ years of current, hands-on experience building production-grade agentic AI systems and LLM-powered applications

Experience delivering self-service or platform tooling adopted by non-technical users

Expert-level proficiency with at least two major agent frameworks such as LangGraph, CrewAI, Anthropic Agents SDK, or OpenAI Agents SDK, including framework customization and development

Expert-level experience designing and implementing RAG solutions, including chunking strategies, embedding selection, vector databases, hybrid retrieval, and reranking methodologies

Hands-on experience developing enterprise AI capabilities including evaluation frameworks, guardrails, agent memory systems, human-in-the-loop workflows, tool registries, skill registries, and prompt management platforms

Experience building or integrating Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers and exposing enterprise capabilities to AI agents

Proficiency in Python and machine learning frameworks such as PyTorch, scikit-learn, and Hugging Face Transformers, with a strong understanding of LLM architectures and traditional machine learning techniques

Experience leveraging AI-assisted development tools to accelerate software delivery, automate code generation, and improve engineering productivity

Experience working within regulated environments and AI governance frameworks, including GxP, NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, or similar compliance standards

Biopharmaceutical industry experience, including familiarity with commercial, medical, research, clinical, or market access functions and relevant healthcare data sources

Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally as needed

An equivalent combination of education and relevant experience may be considered

Other duties as assigned

Physical Requirements

This role involves regular standing, walking, sitting, and the use of hands for handling or operating equipment. The employee may also need to reach, climb, balance, stoop, kneel, crouch, and maintain visual, verbal, and auditory communication in a standard office environment and while working independently from remote locations. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 20 pounds. This position requires the ability to travel independently overnight and/or work after hours as required by travel schedules or business needs.

#LI-Hybrid

#LI-CS1

In addition to a competitive base salary, this position is also eligible for discretionary bonus and equity awards based on factors such as individual and organizational performance. Actual amounts will vary depending on experience, performance, and location.

Salary Range$201,800—$252,300 USD

What we offer US-based Employees:

Competitive base, bonus, new hire and ongoing equity packages

Medical, dental, and vision insurance

Employer-paid life, disability, business travel and EAP coverage

401(k) Plan with a fully vested company match 1:1 up to 5%

Employee Stock Purchase Plan with a 2-year purchase price lock-in

15+ vacation days

13 -15 paid holidays, including office closure between December 24th and January 1st

10 days of paid sick time

Paid parental leave benefit

Tuition assistance

EEO Statement (US-based Employees): Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply for jobs unless they believe they meet every one of the qualifications in the exact way they are described in job postings. We are committed to building a diverse, equitable, inclusive, and innovative company, and we are looking for the BEST candidate for the job. That candidate may be one who comes from a less traditional background or may meet the qualifications in a different way. We strongly encourage you to apply, especially if the reason you are the best candidate isn’t exactly what we describe here.

It is the policy of Acadia to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to considerations of race, including related to hairstyle, color, religion or religious creed, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, gender transition, country of origin, ancestry, citizenship, age, physical or mental disability, genetic information, legally-protected medical condition or information, marital status, domestic partner status, family care status, military caregiver status, veteran or military status (including reserve status, National Guard status, and military service or obligation), status as a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking, enrollment in a public assistance program, or any basis protected under federal, state or local law.

As an equal opportunity employer, Acadia is committed to a diverse workforce. If you are a qualified individual with a disability or a disabled veteran, you have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. Furthermore, you may request additional support if you are unable or limited in your ability to use or access Acadia’s career website due to your disability, along with any accommodations throughout the interview process. To request or inquire about your reasonable accommodation, please complete our Reasonable Accommodation Request Form or contact us at talentacquisition@acadia-pharm.com or 858-261-2923.

Please note that reasonable accommodations granted throughout the recruiting process are not guaranteed to be the same accommodations given if hired. A new request will need to be submitted for any ADA accommodations after starting employment.

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Notice to Search Firms/Third-Party Recruitment Agencies (Recruiters): The Talent Acquisition team manages the recruitment and employment process for Acadia Pharmaceuticals Inc. (“Acadia”). Acadia does not accept resumes from recruiters or search firms without an executed search agreement in place. Resumes sent to Acadia employees in the absence of an executed search agreement will not obligate Acadia in any way with respect to the future employment of those individuals or potential remuneration to any recruiter or search firm. Candidates should never be submitted directly to our hiring managers or employees.