Data Engineering, Aladdin Data, Director

Role Brief: 

The role of Director Data Engineering is a strategic leadership role responsible for transforming how data is ingested managed, governed, and leveraged with a client-first mindset. This role is focal in aligning data strategy with client needs, ensuring that our data platforms deliver measurable value to both external clients and internal stakeholders. You will build the strategic vision using industry knowledge and AI insights to shape long-term data and risk strategies that align with business goals and market dynamics. As part of this role you will be responsible to innovate and enhance the data platform’s capabilities by exploring and adopting new technologies, AI/ML applications, and best practices to maintain competitive advantage. This role is pivotal in driving modernization initiatives, ensuring data availability/quality, and enabling advanced/premium content to support business growth, compliance, and operational efficiency.  
 

Key Responsibilities: 
Data Strategy & Architecture: 

• Define and execute a comprehensive data strategy aligned with business goals 

• Lead the evolution of data platforms, including cloud-native architectures and real-time pipelines 

• Define and execute data evolution roadmap that directly supports client-facing initiatives, such as onboarding, reporting, and analytics delivery. Keeps abreast of the latest trends and advancements in the fintech industry, data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Proactively evaluates competitive landscapes to identify opportunities and threats. 

• Partner with client teams to understand pain points in data access, quality, and timeliness—translating these into platform and process improvements. 

• Champion the use of platforms like Aladdin Data Cloud (ADC) to automate client workflows and Implement robust data governance frameworks that ensure data lineage, entitlement, and quality are transparent and auditable  

• Oversee the architecture and operational management of data pipelines and analytics workflows using Snowflake, dbt, Airflow, and Terraform orchestration.  

Data Governance & Quality: 

• Collaborate with data stewards and business owners to define and enforce data quality rules that meet both internal and client-facing standards  

• Lead Agile project and program management efforts to ensure delivery of Program Increment (PI) objectives, managing timelines, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder communications effectively. 

• Ensure robust data governance practices including stored procedures, data versioning, and data replication technologies (e.g., HVR). 
   

Platform & Infrastructure Leadership: 

• Lead the evolution of data platforms to support scalable, self-service access to report/analytics-ready data for clients. 

• Ensure seamless integration with client-preferred BI tools (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) and cloud environments (e.g., Snowflake)  

• Collaborate with infra, framework and operations teams to ensure platform reliability and performance 

• Oversee Agile project and program management efforts to ensure delivery of Program Increment (PI) objectives, managing timelines, dependencies, risks, and stakeholder communications effectively. 

• Guide platform capabilities including Java-based gRPC APIs, Python scripts, and automated data pipeline integrations. 

• Oversee the monitoring, alerting, and incident management solutions using PagerDuty and related tooling to ensure high availability and rapid issue resolution.  

Cross-Functional Leadership: 

• Serve as the bridge between engineering, product, and client service teams to ensure data initiatives are aligned with evolving client expectations. 

• Lead cross-functional working groups to prioritize and deliver enhancements that improve client satisfaction and operational efficiency. 

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and global stakeholders to align our outputs with business needs and regulatory compliance. 

Change Management & Communication: 

• Drive adoption of new data capabilities across client teams through training, documentation, and stakeholder engagement.  

• Communicate the value of data evolution initiatives to clients, highlighting improvements in speed, accuracy, and insight delivery. 
   

Team Leadership & Change Management: 

• Lead high-performing data teams, fostering a culture of innovation and accountability. 

• Champion data literacy and change management across the organization. 

• Mentor and guide junior and senior team members, fostering a culture of continuous learning, innovation, and collaboration. 

• Drive best practices in data security, quality, and documentation to ensure reliability and trustworthiness of deliverables  

Qualifications: 

• 10+ years of experience in data management, analytics, or technology leadership within financial services. 

• Deep understanding of financial instruments, risk analytics, and regulatory reporting. 

• Proven experience with data governance tools, cloud platforms (e.g., Azure, AWS), and modern data stacks. 

• Hands-on experience in managing data pipelines/workflows using Snowflake, dbt, HVR, Airflow, and Terraform orchestration 

• Strong leadership, communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence at all levels especially in client-facing contexts