Engineering Manager: Engineering Data Platform Enablement (Hybrid, Seattle - WA)

About the Role

Data Platform Enablement keeps Nordstrom's analytics and data platforms running, evolving, and getting simpler. We own a broad portfolio across GCP and AWS — BigQuery, Looker Core, Metabase, and the access management and cost optimization that keep them healthy. We're a small team covering a large surface area, and AI is how we do it.

This is a player-coach role. You own delivery, technical standards, operational health, and the growth of your engineers — and you stay hands-on, writing code and building automation alongside them. You partner with a Product Manager who owns vision and stakeholders, while you own technical delivery, architecture, and team health.

We use AI every day — not occasionally — to write code, automate operations, and investigate incidents. We run Kanban with continuous flow and weekly demos: no sprints, no story points. Our engineers are generalists who work across the whole portfolio, pair, cross-train, and value direct contribution over process.

What You'll Own

Platform & Operations

• Lead engineering delivery across BigQuery/GCP, GCP Looker, Metabase, and AWS workloads
• Own platform reliability, incident response, and on-call for production systems
• Drive capacity planning — forecasting growth, managing compute costs, and scaling ahead of demand
• Support the deprecation of legacy platforms (MicroStrategy, Tableau)

Access Management & Cost Optimization

• Own enterprise access provisioning and governance across the data platform
• Lead cost optimization across GCP, AWS, and platform tooling in partnership with engineering and finance
• Define access policies, tiering models, and provisioning workflows with security and compliance partners

Looker Governance & Development Framework

• Establish LookML governance, development standards, and deployment practices for Looker Core
• Partner with analytics teams on explore design, data modeling, and dashboard best practices
• Own platform health, migration governance, and the Looker development lifecycle

Conversational Analytics Enablement

• Lead the CA enablement strategy — Golden Query standards, agent development, adoption
• Manage token utilization and capacity planning with Insights Delivery leadership
• Partner with every team across the organization to drive CA maturity enterprise-wide

Team Leadership

• Set technical direction: architecture, standards, monitoring, and prioritization
• Develop your engineers and coach AI fluency through hands-on guidance and a high adoption bar
• Contribute as an engineer: write code, build tooling, and review pull requests alongside the team
• Own hiring, capacity planning, and team health

What You Bring

Required

• 2+ years leading engineering teams, with direct accountability for delivery and people development
• 5+ years building software, platforms, infrastructure, or data systems
• Hands-on Python proficiency (or equivalent) you still write today — direct technical contribution is expected
• Strong cloud experience across GCP and/or AWS, with fluency in Git, CI/CD, and infrastructure as code
• Experience owning access management programs at scale
• Daily use of AI coding tools and a real point of view on how they change the way teams work

Bonus Points

• Data platform or BI depth: BigQuery, Looker, Metabase, Tableau, or MicroStrategy
• Terraform and Kubernetes
• Cloud cost optimization at scale
• Analytics access provisioning in SailPoint IdentityNow via SCIM group synchronization
• Hands-on Dataplex zone governance
• Experience standing up an AI-first engineering practice
• Familiarity with Conversational Analytics, LLM-powered data tools, or semantic layer patterns
• Experience at a large-scale retail, e-commerce, or consumer organization

Pay Range Details

The pay range(s) below has been provided in compliance with state specific laws. Pay ranges may be different for other locations. 
Pay offers are dependent on the location, as well as job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

We’ve got you covered…

Our employees are our most important asset and that’s reflected in our benefits. Nordstrom is proud to offer a variety of benefits to support employees and their families, including:

• Medical/Vision, Dental, Retirement and Paid Time Away
• Life Insurance and Disability
• Merchandise Discount and EAP Resources

A few more important points...

The job posting highlights the most critical responsibilities and requirements of the job. It’s not all-inclusive. There may be additional duties, responsibilities and qualifications for this job.

For Los Angeles or San Francisco applicants: Nordstrom is required to inform you that we conduct background checks after conditional offer and consider qualified applicants with criminal histories in a manner consistent with legal requirements per Los Angeles, Cal. Muni. Code 189.04 and the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance. For additional state and location specific notices, please refer to the Legal Notices document within the FAQ section of the Nordstrom Careers site.

Applicants with disabilities who require assistance or accommodation should contact the nearest Nordstrom location, which can be identified at www.nordstrom.com. 

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