Director, Distinguished Engineer - Data Platforms

About the Role:
Grade Level (for internal use):
13
Key Responsibilities
Data Pipeline Transition and Platform Delivery
Partner with the core Databricks team to plan and execute the transition of existing data pipelines to the target enterprise data platform.
Drive implementation of repeatable engineering patterns for ingestion, transformation, testing, deployment, and monitoring across onboarded datasets.
Guide the design and operation of cloud-native data pipelines leveraging relevant AWS services such as:
Amazon S3 for durable storage
AWS Glue for integration and catalog-driven processing
AWS Lambda for event-driven processing
Amazon Kinesis for streaming use cases
AWS Lake Formation for governed data lake controls
Promote the use of AWS IAM, encryption, and environment-level controls to enforce secure access to platform resources and data products in line with enterprise governance expectations.
Influence architectural decisions related to Databricks, Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, Unity Catalog, metadata-driven processing, and governed data lake design.
AI-Assisted Engineering and Context Engineering
Champion the adoption of AI-powered development tools, including Claude, GitHub CoPilot, LLMs, and other AI-assisted engineering solutions, to increase engineering velocity, code quality, and operational effectiveness.
Apply LLM-based tools to support common data engineering activities such as:
Code generation
Code refactoring
SQL optimization
PySpark optimization, etc.
Develop and implement context engineering practices that provide AI tools with the necessary technical background, architectural constraints, data schemas, coding standards, platform patterns, security requirements, and governance expectations.
Create reusable context packs, prompt libraries, and AI-enabled engineering playbooks for common data platform tasks, including Databricks pipeline migration, ingestion framework development, test generation, code review support, and operational troubleshooting.
Use LLMs to accelerate understanding and modernization of legacy pipelines, including dependency analysis, code explanation, transformation logic interpretation, metadata extraction, and refactoring recommendations.
Data Onboarding and Asset-Agnostic Enablement
Provide technical direction for offshore teams supporting data onboarding to the enterprise platform in an asset-agnostic manner.
Define and operationalize onboarding patterns that can support a broad range of data assets, domains, and source systems without requiring bespoke platform redesign for each use case.
Work with partner teams to simplify and standardize how data is ingested, transformed, governed, and published to the platform.
Establish reusable ingestion and processing patterns across batch and streaming use cases using technologies such as AWS Glue, AWS Lambda, Amazon Kinesis, or event-driven integrations where appropriate.
Data Mastering Platform Integration
Support integration of platform pipelines and datasets with the enterprise data mastering platform.
Collaborate with upstream and downstream stakeholders to ensure mastered data can be consumed reliably through standardized interfaces and governed data flows.
Help establish data quality controls, reconciliation processes, metadata alignment, and stewardship workflows required to support trusted mastered data in the platform.
Contribute to issue resolution and continuous improvement related to mastering-related ingestion and distribution workflows.
Support data mastering capabilities aligned with platforms such as NeoXam DataHub, including: Data acquisition, Cleansing, Enrichment, Mastering, Reconciliation, Golden copy generation & Downstream distribution of trusted data products.
Semantic Modeling and Data Discoverability
Support semantic modeling practices that help create consistent business definitions, reusable data concepts, and governed consumption patterns across the enterprise data platform.
Partner with business, architecture, data governance, and platform teams to align technical data structures with business-friendly semantic definitions.
Contribute to defining common entities, attributes, relationships, hierarchies, metrics, and business terms across key data domains such as instruments, issuers, accounts, portfolios, risk, market data, reference data, and investment data.
Help connect semantic modeling concepts with metadata management, business glossaries, data catalogs, lineage, and governed data products.
Technical Influence and Engineering Excellence
Serve as a senior technical expert for offshore data platform engineering, providing guidance on architecture, design patterns, implementation quality, and production readiness.
Influence architectural decisions across pipeline migration, lakehouse design, cloud-native data engineering, metadata-driven processing, AI-assisted engineering, and governed data platform operations.
Provide technical guidance to engineers and partner teams without direct people management responsibility.
Contribute to design reviews, code reviews, implementation planning, and technical problem-solving for complex data platform initiatives.
Support delivery execution by translating broader architectural direction into practical implementation patterns, engineering tasks, reusable technical assets, and AI-enabled productivity accelerators.
Drive rigor across sprint delivery, production readiness, support models, and incident management for business-critical data platforms.
Collaboration, Governance, and Platform Standards
Partner effectively with global platform, architecture, governance, security, data mastering, and Databricks-aligned teams to ensure offshore delivery aligns with enterprise standards.
Contribute to technical discussions related to pipeline architecture, onboarding frameworks, cloud platform controls, data governance, AI-assisted engineering practices, semantic modeling, and mastering integrations.
Support governance requirements through appropriate controls around lineage, schema consistency, data quality, retention, access control, auditability, metadata, and secure data distribution.
Help establish cloud engineering standards for infrastructure as code, release automation, and environment promotion using tools and services such as AWS CodePipeline, AWS CodeBuild, and infrastructure automation frameworks where appropriate.
Act as a technical bridge between offshore execution teams and global platform stakeholders to ensure alignment, reduce ambiguity, and accelerate delivery.
Help define standards for responsible AI use in engineering workflows, including review practices, sensitive data handling, secure prompt construction, validation requirements, and production deployment controls.
Required Qualifications
Technical Leadership and Delivery Experience
10+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, cloud data architecture, software engineering, or related engineering domains.
Demonstrated experience operating as a senior Individual Contributor, technical lead, principal engineer, staff engineer, distinguished engineer, architect, or equivalent role in complex data platform environments.
Proven ability to provide technical guidance, influence architectural decisions, and drive engineering best practices across distributed teams.
Experience partnering with global or onshore stakeholders to deliver platform and pipeline initiatives across time zones.
Ability to translate broader architectural direction into actionable technical designs, implementation patterns, and delivery plans.
Comfortable operating in a role that blends hands-on engineering, technical strategy, architecture influence, delivery enablement, and cross-team technical mentorship.
Data Platform and Cloud Engineering Expertise
Strong hands-on experience with modern data engineering and pipeline development, including batch and/or streaming data workflows.
Experience working with Databricks-based data platforms and supporting migration or transition of pipelines into a lakehouse-oriented architecture.
Strong familiarity with AWS cloud-native data engineering, including services such as Amazon S3, AWS Glue, AWS Lambda, AWS Lake Formation, Amazon Kinesis, and related orchestration, security, and monitoring capabilities used to build scalable and governed data platforms.
Working knowledge of technologies and concepts such as Delta Lake, Apache Iceberg, Databricks Unity Catalog, metadata-driven pipelines, data catalogs, and governed lakehouse architectures.
Experience supporting data integration patterns involving mastering, MDM, reference data, market data, investment data, risk data, or trusted data distribution workflows.
Solid understanding of data quality, schema