Assoc. Dir , Product Adoption Lead

Job Description

Role Overview

The Associate Director, Product Adoption Lead is accountable for driving scalable, enterprise-wide adoption of data capabilities and architectural products by defining adoption strategy, best practices, and enablement frameworks across the product lifecycle.

This role sits within E2E Data Capability & Architecture and focuses on how products are adopted, understood, and successfully used at scale—not on day-to-day onboarding execution, GTM delivery, end-user support, or activation operations.

The Product Adoption Lead partners closely with Product Management, Architecture, Engineering, UX, and Activation teams to ensure products are designed, released, and evolved with adoption in mind, supported by clear success metrics, training ecosystems, user experience optimization, and continuous feedback loops.

Key Responsibilities

Adoption Strategy & Frameworks

• Define and own enterprise adoption strategy, best practices, and frameworks for data capabilities and architecture products across their lifecycle
• Establish adoption success metrics, maturity indicators, and service-tier models to consistently assess product readiness and value realization
• Serve as the single point of accountability for adoption standards used across E2E Data Capability & Architecture products

Training & Enablement Ecosystem

• Design and govern a scalable training ecosystem, including documentation standards, learning paths, self-service resources, and train-the-trainer models
• Ensure training and enablement assets align to product complexity, user personas, and capability maturity levels
• Partner with Activation and delivery teams to ensure clear handoffs between enablement design and execution

User Experience & Journey Optimization

• Shape and optimize product onboarding journeys and user interactions by identifying friction points and experience gaps
• Partner with Product, UX, and Engineering to embed adoption considerations into product design decisions early
• Use research insights, journey mapping, and feedback signals to inform continuous experience improvements

Advanced Capability & Power-User Enablement

• Define strategies to enable advanced features, power users, and complex use cases without owning hands-on execution
• Ensure advanced enablement approaches are reusable, documented, and scalable across products

Feedback Integration & Continuous Improvement

• Establish structured mechanisms to capture, synthesize, and integrate user feedback into product roadmaps and architectural decisions
• Act as a voice of adoption—advocating for usability, clarity, and readiness across teams

Cross-Functional Leadership & Influence

• Partner closely with Product Management, Architecture, Engineering, UX, Governance, and Activation teams to align adoption strategy to product priorities
• Influence without authority across divisions to drive consistency in adoption approaches and expectations
• Support executive reporting and transparency on adoption progress, risks, and outcomes

Qualifications & Experience

Education

• Bachelor’s degree required; advanced degree preferred

Experience

• A minimum of 10 years of proven experience leading product adoption, enablement, or change strategy in a complex, cross-functional environment
• Demonstrated ability to define and scale frameworks used by multiple teams or products
• Experience working with data, analytics, or platform-based products strongly preferred

Skills & Capabilities

• Strong grounding in adoption and change management methodologies (e.g., ADKAR, Prosci)
• Excellent stakeholder influence, communication, and executive-facing skills
• Ability to translate user insights into actionable product and experience improvements
• Comfort operating across ambiguity and driving alignment without direct authority
• Familiarity with agile product environments and cross-functional delivery models.

#HYDIT2025

Required Skills:

Client Counseling, Emerging Technologies, Operational Acceptance Testing (OAT), Product Management, Requirements Management, Solution Architecture, Stakeholder Relationship Management, Technical Advice, User Experience (UX) Design, Waterfall Model

Preferred Skills:

Current Employees apply HERE

Current Contingent Workers apply HERE

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.

Employee Status:

Regular

Relocation:

VISA Sponsorship:

Travel Requirements:

Flexible Work Arrangements:

Hybrid

Shift:

Valid Driving License:

Hazardous Material(s):

Job Posting End Date:

06/22/2026

*A job posting is effective until 11:59:59PM on the day BEFORE the listed job posting end date. Please ensure you apply to a job posting no later than the day BEFORE the job posting end date.