Senior Director, Data Engineering

Summary

Join phData, a leading innovator in the modern data stack, partnering with major cloud platforms. As a remote-first global company, we offer a casual, exciting work environment. The Senior Director, Data Engineering role is a highly strategic, mission-critical position requiring technical expertise, business acumen, and leadership. You will serve as a CTO-like advisor to strategic customers, leading customer success, technical strategy, and delivery excellence. This role demands a blend of hands-on architecture skills, executive presence, and entrepreneurial drive. If you thrive in high-impact, fast-paced roles, this is a career-defining opportunity.

Requirements

• 10+ years of hands-on experience delivering complex data or AI/ML platforms in production environments
• 3+ years in a consulting leadership role with direct client ownership and revenue accountability
• Deep technical expertise in cloud platforms (Snowflake, AWS, Azure, GCP), modern data stacks, and MLOps tools
• Proven success growing enterprise accounts and building executive-level relationships
• Strong architectural and implementation skills in Python, SQL, dbt, and modern infrastructure tooling
• Excellent communication and negotiation skills with a strong sense of presence and clarity under pressure
• Willingness to travel for customer meetings, QBRs, and key events when necessary

Responsibilities

• Serve as the executive-level technical leader and primary advisor for strategic customer accounts
• Act as a CTO for your accounts, guiding technology decisions, roadmaps, architecture, and platform maturity
• Build deep relationships with technical and business stakeholders, driving consensus on solutions
• Lead Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs), Innovation Days, roadmap presentations, and architectural vision sessions
• Deliver clear recommendations, success criteria, and measurement frameworks for each engagement
• Step into complex or ambiguous problem spaces and provide clarity, direction, and momentum
• Collaborate closely with Account Executives to create and execute growth strategies
• Identify new opportunities for phData services and lead scoping, pricing, and proposal development
• Influence buying centers, build executive relationships, and create value-based narratives for expansion
• Deeply understand customer needs and industry trends, positioning phData offerings accordingly
• Drive strategic alignment between the customer, partners (e.g., Snowflake), and internal teams
• Develop and execute multi-year technology roadmaps aligned to client business outcomes
• Own delivery success and overall satisfaction across all projects within assigned accounts
• Ensure delivery quality through mentorship, leadership, and hands-on involvement as needed
• Provide architectural oversight, escalation management, and alignment across teams
• Build technical documentation, vision statements, solution architectures, and proofs of concept
• Drive accountability across internal and client teams through strategic, candid communication
• Lead enablement and education of delivery teams through documentation, onboarding support, and cross-training sessions
• Mentor technical consultants and engineers across the delivery organization
• Build and grow technical and communication skills across teams to elevate delivery maturity
• Identify and share delivery patterns that drive scalable, repeatable customer success
• Actively contribute to phData internal initiatives and communities of practice
• Lead client resource planning, forecasting, and skills alignment in partnership with Recruiting and Resourcing
• Track KPIs and metrics across engagements to measure and communicate business outcomes
• Contribute to internal knowledge sharing and play a key role in Practice Lead strategy discussions
• Collaborate with partner technology teams and keep the broader account team aligned and informed
• Participate in key leadership, sales, and delivery syncs to ensure alignment across functions

Preferred Qualifications

• Advanced degree in a technical, data, or business-related discipline
• Experience leading delivery within a scaled services or consulting firm
• Proficiency in partner ecosystem collaboration (especially Snowflake, AWS, dbt)
• Hands-on experience with containerization (Docker, Kubernetes) and cloud-native AI/ML tools
• Demonstrated thought leadership (e.g., blogs, speaking, open source) is a plus

Benefits

• Remote-First Work Environment
• Casual, award-winning small-business work environment
• Collaborative culture that prizes autonomy, creativity, and transparency
• Competitive comp, excellent benefits, 4 weeks PTO plan plus 10 Holidays (and other cool perks)
• Accelerated learning and professional development through advanced training and certifications