Associate Director - Lab Operations
About this opportunity
We are seeking an Associate Director, Lab Operations to join IQVIA Laboratories at Valencia, CA.
We hire passionate innovators who drive healthcare forward through thoughtful and inclusive collaboration. If you want to discover a career with greater purpose, join us as we transform and accelerate research and development.
Job Summary:
Lead laboratory teams in a regulated clinical testing environment, ensuring safe, compliant, high-quality, and efficient operations. Shape departmental strategy, develop staff, manage operational performance, and drive continuous improvement across laboratory functions.
What You'll Be Doing:
Direct the daily activities of laboratory work groups through effective delegation, technical training, coaching, and supervision
Plan, prioritize, and assign workloads, projects, and operational resources
Recruit, train, develop, and manage the performance of laboratory staff
Establish team objectives and performance metrics aligned with departmental strategy and operational goals
Identify cost-saving and revenue opportunities while supporting budget planning for consumables, instrumentation, and staffing
Resolve operational, quality, safety, and supply-chain challenges across multiple departments
Ensure regulatory and safety compliance in collaboration with Quality Assurance and Environmental, Health and Safety teams
Drive CAPA closure, quality incident resolution, root cause analysis, business continuity, and continuous improvement initiatives
What We Are Looking For:
A bachelor’s degree or an equivalent combination of education and experience is required; some CAP/CLIA laboratory locations may require a Bachelor of Science in a chemical, physical, biological, or clinical laboratory science, medical laboratory technology, or cytotechnology
Typically requires >8 years experience in regulated environment
5 years line management experience is required
In-depth knowledge of clinical testing procedures and applicable laboratory testing regulations
Strong technical understanding of laboratory operations, testing methods, study setup, and cross-functional or system dependencies
Working knowledge of quality assurance, quality control, CAPA, root cause analysis, and occupational safety and health regulations
Applicable certifications and licenses are required where specified by local regulations
Other equivalent combination of education, training, and experience may be accepted in lieu of degree
The Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Needed for This Role:
Ability to lead and manage processes, projects, and operational tactics across one department or multiple related departments
Effective people leadership, supervision, performance management, and coaching skills
Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills, with the ability to influence stakeholders at all levels, including senior leadership
Ability to assess and prioritize multiple tasks, projects, operational risks, and competing demands
Ability to establish effective working relationships and foster collaboration with employees, managers, clients, Quality Assurance, and Environmental, Health and Safety partners
Commitment to building a unified, quality-oriented culture that supports employee engagement, customer satisfaction, operational performance, and retention
What We Offer You:
We put our employees at the center of everything we do and are committed to providing them, and their families, with benefits that meet their diverse and changing needs. We invest in integrated benefits programs and resources to take care of our employees' physical, mental and emotional, financial and social well-being so they can thrive at home and at work, at any stage of their well-being journey.
To learn more about our benefits, visit https://jobs.iqvia.com/benefits.
If you're looking to unleash your potential, join IQVIA Laboratories to help make the extraordinary possible!
IQVIA is a leading global provider of clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare industries. We create intelligent connections to accelerate the development and commercialization of innovative medical treatments to help improve patient outcomes and population health worldwide. Learn more at https://jobs.iqvia.com
IQVIA is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other status protected by applicable law. https://jobs.iqvia.com/eoe
IQVIA is committed to integrity in our hiring process and maintains a zero tolerance policy for candidate fraud. All information and credentials submitted in your application must be truthful and complete. Any false statements, misrepresentations, or material omissions during the recruitment process will result in immediate disqualification of your application, or termination of employment if discovered later, in accordance with applicable law. We appreciate your honesty and professionalism.
The potential base pay range for this role, when annualized, is $92,200.00 - $213,900.00. The actual base pay offered may vary based on a number of factors including job-related qualifications such as knowledge, skills, education, and experience; location; and/or schedule (full or part-time). Dependent on the position offered, incentive plans, bonuses, and/or other forms of compensation may be offered, in addition to a range of health and welfare and/or other benefits.
Job details
How this role compares
Computed from every other active Clinical Research role in our database, not just this employer's listings.
We currently track 115 comparable Associate Director Clinical Research roles across 21 biopharma companies.
Salary context
22 of 115 peers report a salary range (USD, annualized)
Peers share this role's job function and a matching or adjacent seniority level -- not necessarily the same therapeutic area or country.
Where these roles are based
Top locations among the 115 comparable roles
+ 25 more countries
Seniority mix
115 of 115 peers have a known seniority level
Therapeutic area mix
7 of 115 peers have a known therapeutic area; the rest are genuinely unlabeled, not hidden
Similar opportunities
The closest matches from our peer group, ranked by how similar they are, not how well you'd qualify for them -- treat this as market context, not a guaranteed shortlist; a weak match is labeled as one below.
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Get an email when we spot other openings like this one – same job function, comparable seniority, roles you'd actually want to see.
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How we calculate "similar"
No black box, no LLM guesswork: a deterministic score built from four normalized attributes. Here's this role's own peer group at different match levels, so you can see the mechanism, not just the result.
Every comparison starts from the same 100-point budget: 25 for working in the same function, 40 for the same therapeutic area, 20 for the same or adjacent seniority, 15 for the same country. A dimension we can't confirm on both sides contributes nothing, never a guess, never a free pass.
0 points, never a partial guess. A role we know almost nothing about beyond its function bottoms out at 25%; it never inflates to 100% just because there's little to compare against. Seniority uses a defined ladder (Associate → Manager → Associate Director → Senior → Principal → Director → Senior Director → Executive/VP) so "Director" and "Senior Director" count as adjacent, but "Director" and "Executive/VP" do not.