Director – Procurement AI Innovation & Emerging Technology

Location: Warsaw OR Cracow, PolandHybrid model of work: 3 days in office, 2 remote per weekLead the exploration, testing, and validation of emerging AI capabilities that will deliver productivity. Act as Procurement's AI innovation engine, identifying, evaluating, and prototyping new solutions before broader deployment in close collaboration with the IT department. 

Key Responsibilities 

AI Technology Exploration

• Continuously evaluate emerging AI technologies, platforms, models, and tools. 
• Maintain awareness of external AI market developments and vendor offerings. 
• Assess applicability of new AI technologies to Procurement business problems. 
• Run technology comparisons and proof-of-value assessments. 

Rapid Prototyping & Development

• Develop prototypes using Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Azure AI Services, Power Platform, Python, APIs, and multi-agent frameworks. 
• Build reusable AI accelerators and automation components. 
• Test orchestration scenarios involving multiple agents and systems. 

Procurement Use Case Discovery

• Partner with Procurement teams and other AZ functions to identify AI opportunities. 
• Translate business challenges into AI experiments. 
• Conduct feasibility assessments. 
• Prioritize ideas based on impact and implementation complexity. 

AI Performance & Quality Testing

• Evaluate AI accuracy, consistency, reliability, and risk. 
• Design testing methodologies for AI solutions. 
• Establish prompt engineering and evaluation standards. 
• Measure model performance and business effectiveness. 

Vendor & Technology Strategy

• Support build-versus-buy decisions.  
• Evaluate AI solutions.  
• Conduct market scans and capability assessments. 

Knowledge Development

• Create reusable prompting frameworks. 
• Publish technical guidance and best practices. 
• Share lessons learned across Procurement. 

Required Skills 

• Advanced AI fluency, including generative AI, agentic AI, large language models, prompt engineering, model evaluation, and AI quality testing. 
• Hands-on prototyping capability using Copilot Studio, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform, Azure AI Services, Python, APIs, and automation frameworks. 
• Strong experimentation mindset, with the ability to convert ambiguous procurement problems into testable AI hypotheses, prototypes, and proof-of-value assessments. 
• Emerging technology scouting and market-sensing skills to identify relevant AI tools, vendor capabilities, and external innovation trends. 
• Data fluency, including the ability to assess data readiness, interpret AI-generated insights, validate outputs, and identify quality or bias risks. 
• Procurement domain knowledge across sourcing, contracting, negotiation, supplier management, compliance, analytics, and category strategy. 
• Ability to evaluate build-versus-buy options, technical feasibility, business impact, implementation complexity, and enterprise scalability. 
• Strong communication and storytelling skills to explain AI opportunities, limitations, risks, and value potential to senior Procurement, IT, and business stakeholders. 

Date Posted

Closing Date

AstraZeneca embraces diversity and equality of opportunity.  We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse team representing all backgrounds, with as wide a range of perspectives as possible, and harnessing industry-leading skills.  We believe that the more inclusive we are, the better our work will be.  We welcome and consider applications to join our team from all qualified candidates, regardless of their characteristics.  We comply with all applicable laws and regulations on non-discrimination in employment (and recruitment), as well as work authorization and employment eligibility verification requirements.