Director, IT Data Engineering

The Director, IT Data Engineering will lead the enterprise data engineering function, driving strategy, architecture, and execution of scalable data platforms that enable advanced analytics, AI/ML initiatives, and business intelligence across the organization.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities:

• Execute the enterprise data engineering roadmap aligned to business objectives.
• Oversee design, development, and support of enterprise-scale data pipelines, data warehouses, and lakehouses across Azure and AWS environments.
• Provide 60% hands-on leadership in production support and operational data solutions; 40% team leadership and strategy.
• Lead incident management, operational excellence, and performance optimization efforts.
• Partner with BI, Analytics, Data Science, Product, IT, and business leaders to translate requirements into scalable data solutions.
• Establish and enforce best practices in data modeling, ETL/ELT, orchestration, metadata management, data quality, and observability.
• Lead Customer Data Platform (CDP) architecture and integration to enable unified customer profiles and real-time activation.
• Drive AI/ML enablement and establish MLOps best practices for model deployment and monitoring.
• Manage and prioritize work for a blended team of onshore and offshore data engineers.
• Mentor and develop a high-performing data engineering team.

• Must-Have Skills/Experiences:

• 8 years of experience in data warehousing and ETL development (MS SSIS, Azure Data Factory, or similar).
• 6 years of advanced SQL development (queries, stored procedures, views, triggers, performance tuning).
• 3 years of experience leading and managing data engineering teams.
• 3 years of experience with reporting/visualization tools (SSRS, Power BI, Tableau).
• Hands-on experience within a Microsoft data ecosystem (SQL Server, Azure SQL, ADF, Power BI, Fabric).
• Experience leading AI-focused engineering initiatives or managing AI/ML teams.
• Strong understanding of data governance, security, compliance, and enterprise data standards.
• Ability to operate strategically while remaining hands-on in technical execution.
• Excellent communication skills with both technical and business stakeholders.

• Nice-to-Have Skills/Experiences (NOT required, but a plus!):

• Prior Director-level leadership experience.
• Experience in healthcare or retail environments.
• Experience in consulting or product-based software environments.
• Experience implementing data lineage, observability, and metadata frameworks.
• Familiarity with MLOps tools (MLflow, SageMaker, Kubeflow).
• Experience leading multi-cloud (Azure AWS) data environments.