Senior Specialist, Digital Foundations Lead

We aspire to be the premier research-intensive biopharmaceutical company. We're at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions that advance the prevention and treatment of diseases in people and animals. Join our team and use the power of leading-edge science to save and improve lives around the world.

As a Senior Specialist, Digital Foundations Lead, you will play a crucial role in supporting the infrastructure, connectivity, cybersecurity, and operational technology (OT) environments that enable GMP manufacturing systems. This role serves as a technical resource supporting manufacturing applications, automation platforms, data systems, and digital technologies through reliable network architecture, server infrastructure, and secure IT/OT integration.

The Senior Specialist partners closely with Manufacturing, Engineering, Automation, Quality, Cybersecurity, Enterprise IT, and external vendors to ensure that site infrastructure supports manufacturing operations while maintaining compliance, security, and system reliability. The role combines infrastructure engineering, industrial networking, cybersecurity, and SDLC knowledge to support the site's digital manufacturing ecosystem.

• →Provide day-to-day support for manufacturing IT and OT infrastructure environments.
• →Support infrastructure & shop floor hardware hosting manufacturing systems including DeltaV, MES/eBR, SCADA platforms, laboratory systems, and OEM supplied systems.
• →Monitor infrastructure health, availability, and performance.
• →Support incident management, troubleshooting, and root cause investigations.
• →Participate in on-call support for business-critical manufacturing systems.
• →Support industrial and enterprise network environments.
• →Troubleshoot connectivity issues impacting manufacturing operations.
• →Support network architecture associated with manufacturing equipment, automation systems, data historians, cloud services, and enterprise applications.
• →Maintain network documentation and asset inventories.
• →Coordinate infrastructure changes with enterprise networking teams.
• →Support site IT/OT architecture aligned with Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture.
• →Understand and maintain system connectivity across various levels of the Purdue Model.
• →Support segregation of operational technology and enterprise networks.
• →Participate in architecture reviews for new manufacturing systems and capital projects.
• →Ensure alignment with enterprise IT/OT standards.
• →Support implementation of cybersecurity controls for manufacturing systems.
• →Assist with firewall management, network segmentation, access management, vulnerability remediation, and patch management.
• →Support cybersecurity assessments and remediation activities.
• →Collaborate with Cybersecurity and Infrastructure teams to maintain secure manufacturing environments.
• →Ensure systems remain compliant with internal policies and regulatory expectations.
• →Support infrastructure technologies including VMware, Windows Server platforms, Active Directory, DNS and DHCP services, backup and disaster recovery solutions, industrial firewalls, switches and routers, manufacturing system hosting environments, and cloud-connected manufacturing services.
• →Support infrastructure activities throughout the System Development Life Cycle (SDLC).
• →Participate in requirements development, infrastructure design reviews, testing and qualification, release management, change control, and lifecycle maintenance.
• →Support infrastructure qualification and validation activities.
• →Maintain system documentation and audit readiness.
• →Support infrastructure delivery for capital projects and facility expansions.
• →Work with vendors, system integrators, and project teams to deploy new infrastructure.
• →Support startup readiness for new manufacturing systems and equipment.

Required

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Information Systems, Computer Engineering, Cybersecurity, Network Engineering, or related discipline. Equivalent experience may be considered.
• Five or more (5+) years of experience supporting IT, OT, infrastructure, or manufacturing technology environments.

Preferred

• Understanding and hands-on experience of shopfloor hardware for manufacturing systems (e.g., barcode scanners & printers).
• Strong understanding of industrial networking, TCP/IP fundamentals, network architecture, system administration, and virtualization technologies.
• Knowledge of Purdue Architecture and IT/OT convergence principles.
• Experience supporting firewalls, network segmentation, industrial DMZ environments, and cybersecurity controls.
• Familiarity with manufacturing systems.
• Understanding of SDLC and validated systems in regulated environments.
• Familiarity with VMware, Windows Server, Active Directory, Azure services, and backup and recovery solutions.
• Experience supporting infrastructure projects and system deployments.
• Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills.
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to work across IT, OT, Engineering, Quality, and Manufacturing organizations.

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Our company is committed to inclusion, ensuring that candidates can engage in a hiring process that exhibits their true capabilities. Please click here if you need an accommodation during the application or hiring process.

As an Equal Employment Opportunity Employer, we provide equal opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment and prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, protected veteran status, disability status, or other applicable legally protected characteristics.  As a federal contractor, we comply with all affirmative action requirements for protected veterans and individuals with disabilities.  For more information about personal rights under the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment laws, visit:

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We are proud to be a company that embraces the value of bringing together, talented, and committed people with diverse experiences, perspectives, skills and backgrounds. The fastest way to breakthrough innovation is when people with diverse ideas, broad experiences, backgrounds, and skills come together in an inclusive environment. We encourage our colleagues to respectfully challenge one another’s thinking and approach problems collectively.

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Where required by law, the compensation range for this role is provided below.

The salary range for the primary location of this role is:

This range reflects the Company's reasonable expectation of the base salary applicable to this role at the time of posting. An employee’s position within the salary range will be based on several factors including, but not limited to relevant education, qualifications, certifications, experience, skills, geographic location, government requirements, and business or organizational needs. The successful candidate will be eligible for annual bonus and long-term incentive, if applicable.

We offer a comprehensive package of benefits. Available benefits include medical, dental, vision healthcare and other insurance benefits (for employee and family), retirement benefits, including 401(k), paid holidays, vacation, and compassionate and sick days. More information about benefits is available at https://jobs.merck.com/us/en/compensation-and-benefits.