IT Director – Data Engineering & Analytics Platforms

IT Director – Data Engineering & Analytics Platforms

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Management Information Systems, Engineering, Business, or other computer-related degree required.
• 12+ years of diversified IT experience required.
• 5+ years managing high-level professional staff required.
• Deep expertise in data engineering, modern cloud-based data platforms (Azure preferred), data warehousing, ETL/ELT, and data modeling.
• Strong expertise in Azure data stack (Databricks, Synapse, Purview, Profisee, Power BI, Qlik).
• Knowledge of data modeling principles, medallion architecture, Unified Data Models (UDM), and analytical models.
• Experience with tools like Power BI, Databricks, Synapse, Purview, Profisee, and Qlik.

Responsibilities

• Oversees the planning, design, implementation, and measurement of IT systems and ensures a balance between growing the agility required to achieve business objectives and ensuring core IT functions are reliable, stable, secure and efficient.
• Provides guidance on the implementation of large or complex projects and oversees progression while ensuring the department program portfolio is managed effectively through governance and planning processes.
• Manages the department budget and financial resources including but not limited to technology services, software, hardware, and expense tracking ensuring the most effective use to maximize outcomes.
• Stays abreast of emerging technologies, industry trends, and regulatory changes, and provides direction on which emerging technologies should be introduced, integrated, and assimilated to improve operational effectiveness and manage risk.
• Participate in the evaluation and selection of vendors, review of contracts and management of vendor relationships to ensure cost-effective and reliable IT services and solutions.
• Collaborates with internal and external stakeholders on the development of the technology capability roadmap.
• Collaborates on the development of IT policies, procedures, and standards, ensuring they are up to date and in line with area of responsibility and industry standards.
• Collaborate with management on the design of an organizational structure and operating model to meet business objectives.
• Responsible for recruitment, development, retention, performance management, and succession planning that will lead to a strong talent pipeline.
• Develop and implement strategic plans for data engineering, architecture, and platform management, aligning them with business objectives and the data product vision.
• Lead, manage, and mentor the Data Engineering, Architecture, and Platforms teams, translating the organizational vision into team goals while fostering a culture of innovation, learning, and continuous improvement.
• Oversee the Insights and Discovery Platform, ensuring its reliability, scalability, and cost-effectiveness, while advancing the use of data architecture best practices, data governance models, and Medallion Architecture for improved scalability and governance.
• Drive the adoption of advanced analytics, knowledge graphs, and data contextualization; optimize data pipelines, ETL frameworks, and models to support growth while enforcing tight FinOps control to optimize cloud costs.
• Define and measure KPIs and OKRs to track platform performance, user adoption, and cost optimization, ensuring platform uptime and data product delivery.
• Serve as a trusted advisor to senior executives on data engineering best practices and platform capabilities, translating complex technical concepts into clear business narratives.
• Manage the delivery of data solutions, ensuring spending aligns with business priorities and resources are allocated effectively.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in data contextualization, knowledge graphs, and DataOps is a plus.