Job Description

Associate Director, Technical Project Management, Investment Manager

The Opportunity

Join a global biopharma company with a 130-year legacy and mission to achieve new milestones in healthcare. Be part of technology driven, data-led organization supporting a diversified portfolio of medicines, vaccines and animal health products. Work alongside passionate teams that use data, analytics and insights to drive decisions, and tackle some of the world’s greatest health threats. Our Technology Centers are globally distributed hubs that enable our digital transformation and business outcomes across IT. Each Tech Center is supported by a focused group of leaders who invest in the well-being of our people and work together across locations to optimize global connections and continuously share and improve best practices. This role is based at our Hyderabad Tech Center and follows a hybrid working model (3 days onsite, 2 days remote). Candidates are expected to reside within commuting distance of the Hyderabad office.

Role Overview

As an Associate Director and Investment Manager within the Technical Project Management family, you will lead the financial governance, budget operations, and backoffice administration for our technical delivery teams. You will essentially "run the books" for the organization, driving end-to-end management of capital and operational budgets, cost forecasts, actuals tracking, and financial compliance. You will collaborate closely with technical project managers, engineering leads, and finance partners to ensure resource allocation, vendor contracts, and portfolio spend are fully optimized and transparent. Utilizing your financial acumen and analytical skills, you will translate complex financial data into actionable insights and strategic recommendations for senior leadership.

What will you do in this role

• Run the Books: Manage and govern the end-to-end technical department/portfolio budget, including forecasting, cost tracking, variance analysis, and regular financial reporting. 

• Financial Forecasting & Planning: Partner with project and engineering leads to align quarterly/annual financial forecasts with delivery roadmaps, ensuring accurate cost estimations and capitalization models. 

• Vendor & Procurement Coordination: Manage the backoffice procurement pipeline, driving the end-to-end processing of Statements of Work (SOWs), Purchase Orders (POs), vendor invoicing, and contract tracking. 

• Resource and Demand Tracking: Track operational team needs, manage headcount planning models, and oversee onboarding metrics to ensure correct financial allocation. 

• Financial Transparency & Reporting: Design, build, and maintain real-time financial dashboards and KPIs to provide the leadership team with visibility into overall run-rate and project-specific ROI. 

• Capitalization and Compliance: Ensure all project expenditures comply with internal accounting policies, corporate governance guidelines, and software capitalization rules (CapEx vs. OpEx). 

• Cost Optimization: Analyze existing spend patterns, infrastructure usage, and license costs to proactively identify cost-savings or optimization opportunities. 

• Stakeholder Management: Present financial summaries, budget health metrics, and risk mitigation strategies clearly during leadership business reviews. 

• Process Improvement: Standardize and automate backoffice financial tracking procedures, reducing manual efforts across technical project teams. 

• Mentorship: Provide guidance to project managers and team leads on financial processes, procurement guidelines, and budget management tools

What should you have

Educational requirement is mandatory. Skills are separated into Primary and Secondary – this structure must be maintained to support HiredScore screening. 

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, Accounting, Business Administration, Information Technology, or a related technology field. 

• 10-14 years of professional experience, with a significant track record in IT financial management, portfolio budget coordination, or technical business operations. 

Required Skills:

• Financial Operations & Bookkeeping: Mastery in budgeting, forecasting, actuals tracking, variance analysis, and CapEx/OpEx management within an IT or engineering setting. 

• Procurement & Contract Operations: Proven experience managing the lifecycle of SOWs, Purchase Orders, and interfacing with Procurement, Finance, and external vendors. 

• Advanced Financial Tools: High-level proficiency in MS Excel (advanced modeling, pivot tables, forecasting functions) and enterprise resource tools (e.g., SAP, portfolio management systems, or Clarity). 

• Resource Demand Planning: Hands-on experience tracking headcount, managing operational demand capacity, and aligning resource plans to financial budgets. 

• Analytical Skills: Strong ability to synthesize large volumes of financial data into clear, visual dashboards and executive summaries. 

• Stakeholder Communication: Excellent interpersonal skills to effectively liaise with both technical leaders and finance controllers. 

Primary Skills (Must have):

• Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A)

• Budgeting & Forecasting

• Variance Analysis

• CapEx / OpEx Management

• SAP

• Procurement & Purchase Orders (PO)

• Statement of Work (SOW)

• Resource Demand Planning

• Financial Modeling

• Advanced Excel

• Stakeholder Management

• Investment Management

Secondary Skills (Nice to have):

• MBA, Certified Management Accountant (CMA), PMP, or related financial and project certifications. 

• Familiarity with Agile/Scrum delivery frameworks and how modern software delivery impact budgeting cycles.

Who we are:

We are known as well-known org Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

What we look for:

Imagine getting up in the morning for a job as important as helping to save and improve lives around the world. Here, you have that opportunity. You can put your empathy, creativity, digital mastery, or scientific genius to work in collaboration with a diverse group of colleagues who pursue and bring hope to countless people who are battling some of the most challenging diseases of our time. Our team is constantly evolving, so if you are among the intellectually curious, join us—and start making your impact today.

Required Skills:

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

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Search Firm Representatives Please Read Carefully 
Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, also known as Merck Sharp & Dohme LLC, Rahway, NJ, USA, does not accept unsolicited assistance from search firms for employment opportunities. All CVs / resumes submitted by search firms to any employee at our company without a valid written search agreement in place for this position will be deemed the sole property of our company.  No fee will be paid in the event a candidate is hired by our company as a result of an agency referral where no pre-existing agreement is in place. Where agency agreements are in place, introductions are position specific. Please, no phone calls or emails. 

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