Technical Lead, Enterprise Data (Director)

We’re building a new team to own internal data infrastructure, executive analytics, and AI capabilities. As the Technical Lead, Enterprise Data (Director), you’ll set the technical direction for the team-architecting the data platform, owning the AI strategy, and ensuring we make the right build-vs-buy decisions. This is a player-coach role. You’ll lead technical direction and mentor engineers, but you’ll also go hands-on when needed. You’ll own the AI vendor evaluation process, which is critical given our ITAR/EAR security requirements-standard AI tools don’t work out of the box, and we need someone who can navigate the landscape and find compliant solutions., * Set technical direction: Define the architecture for our data platform (Databricks, Fivetran, dbt) and AI tooling; make build-vs-buy decisions.

• Own AI strategy: Evaluate and select AI platforms (chatbot, enterprise search, specialized tools) that meet security requirements; lead RAG evaluation in H2.
• Lead technical delivery: Ensure the ION-Ramp integration, dashboards, and AI tools are built correctly; hands-on when needed.
• Mentor engineers: Set the technical bar for hiring; develop the DevOps and Data Platform Engineers on the team.
• Interface with SWE: Coordinate with the Software Engineering team on shared Databricks infrastructure; ensure operational and engineering workloads coexist.
• Navigate security: Work with IT/Security to ensure all technical decisions meet ITAR/EAR compliance requirements.

• 10+ years of software or data engineering experience, including hands-on AI/ML work.
• Deep understanding of the AI landscape-you can evaluate vendor tools, understand RAG architectures, and advise on build-vs-buy tradeoffs.
• Data platform architecture experience-you’ve designed and built systems on Databricks, Snowflake, or similar.
• Strong technical leadership-you can set direction, mentor engineers, and interface effectively with non-technical stakeholders.
• Hands-on ability-you’re a player-coach who can write code when needed, not just draw diagrams., * Background in hardware, aerospace, or defense-you understand manufacturing data, supply chain systems, and the complexity of physical product development.
• Experience shipping AI products or building AI capabilities at a company (not just research).
• Experience with data integration tools (Fivetran, Airbyte, dbt).
• Experience in regulated environments (SOC 2, FedRAMP, ITAR).
• Familiarity with BI/analytics tools (Looker, Tableau, Power BI, Databricks dashboards).