Director of Data Engineering

Location: Remote Eastern US, UK or Germany (required valid right to work, no sponsorship available)

Department: Product & Technology

Reports to: VP of Engineering

We're looking for an exceptional engineering leader to build and grow high-performing data engineering squads responsible for the data foundation behind the next generation of intelligent products at Accelerant.

This is a role for someone who is passionate about building organisations as much as building data platforms.

We're building engineering squads for the AI era-squads that combine exceptional people, modern engineering practices and AI to deliver dramatically more value than traditional software organisations. AI is fundamental to how we design, build, test and operate software, enabling our engineers to move faster, focus on higher-value problems and deliver greater impact.

As Director of Data Engineering, you'll directly line manage data engineers and data platform engineers across one engineering squad today, growing to two, creating an environment where talented people thrive, grow and consistently deliver exceptional customer outcomes.

You'll have end-to-end accountability for the health, effectiveness and outcomes of your squads.

Working closely with Product, Architecture and specialists from across the business, you'll help shape data products and platforms that solve real customer problems while continuing to evolve how engineering operates at Accelerant.

You'll lead data engineering squads responsible for the data foundation of Accelerant's risk exchange.

Your squads will build and run the data platform that gives domain teams the tooling, patterns and governance to deliver trusted, high-quality data products. The data platform squad is responsible for infrastructure, ingestion, access control and the tooling to create data domains, supporting our data mesh architecture across Accelerant. Domain data products drive our SaaS products, underpin internal analytics and fuel operational systems, enabling intelligent workflows and AI-powered capabilities that help specialty insurers and capital providers make faster, better-informed decisions.

As our platform evolves, you'll help shape increasingly autonomous systems where AI takes on more responsibility while people remain firmly in control.

Just as importantly, you'll help build an engineering organisation that continually improves how data and software are designed, delivered and operated-creating an environment where talented engineers do their best work and consistently deliver exceptional outcomes.

• Directly line manage data engineers and data platform engineers across one high-performing engineering squad today, growing to two.
• Build a culture of ownership, accountability, collaboration and continuous improvement.
• Hire exceptional engineers and help them grow into future technical and engineering leaders.
• Create an environment where engineers feel trusted, supported and empowered to do their best work.
• Foster inclusive, engaged squads that enjoy solving difficult data problems together.
• Invest heavily in coaching, mentoring and career development.
• Hold regular one-to-ones, performance reviews and career development conversations.
• Provide regular, meaningful feedback that helps engineers grow.
• Help individuals identify and achieve their career aspirations.
• Build leadership capability across your squads.
• Create a high-performance culture centred on trust, learning and continuous improvement.
• Partner closely with Product Managers, Architects, domain teams and specialists from across the business to shape the data platform roadmap and deliver exceptional customer outcomes.
• Help squads establish clear goals, make informed trade-offs and maintain delivery momentum.
• Remove organisational blockers and manage dependencies across squads where needed.
• Balance speed of delivery with reliability, engineering quality, scalability and long-term maintainability.
• Support delivery when required while empowering squads to own execution.

• Continuously evolve how your squads build and operate data platforms by embracing emerging AI capabilities, engineering practices and developer tooling.
• Help engineers maximise the value of AI while applying strong engineering judgement to everything that ships.
• Deliver the trusted, well-governed data that intelligent products, autonomous workflows and AI-powered…