Associate Director, Engineering

Company description

Starcom is the world's first standalone media agency, a storied innovator that continues to lead the way for many of the world's best brands.

Starcom has long been the professional birthplace and proving ground for marketing leaders - CEOs, CMOs, sales leaders, and technology pioneers - and we continue to drive the industry with peerless talent and relentless innovation.

From the start, we've known that achieving growth for our clients requires understanding and connecting with real people where they live and work, in ways they value.

In an AI era, we remain ""Guided By Humanity,"" a phrase that describes our foundational belief that human expertise must remain in the driver's seat, supported by the best processes and technology.

With our proprietary capabilities and Publicis Media's industry-leading resources and clout, we create ideas that move people and drive transformative business outcomes for brands.

Overview

We are seeking an experienced and highly skilled Associate Director, Engineering to join our dynamic team. The ideal candidate will have a minimum of three years of hands-on experience in the Azure Cloud ecosystem and a strong foundation in building, deploying, and optimizing robust data pipelines.

This role requires technical expertise in modern data warehousing, data lake management, and leveraging cutting-edge AI services to drive process automation and efficiency. The successful candidate will be a proactive, innovative thinker with excellent communication skills, dedicated to continuous improvement of our data platform.

Responsibilities

Key Responsibilities:

* Design and deploy robust Azure Data Factory pipelines for scalable data ingestion and transformation.

* Develop and optimize data workflows across Azure SQL Managed Instance, Azure Fabric Data Warehouse, and ADLS / One Lake storage.

* Work extensively with Parquet files, including integration with Azure Databricks, and configure Delta Sharing for secure data exchange.

* Manage data in Azure Data Lake, ensuring performance, security, and governance best practices.

* Collaborate across teams to implement AI-enabled tools and services for process automation and operational efficiency.

* Develop clean, maintainable code in Python for data processing and automation tasks.

* Participate in architectural discussions, mentor junior engineers, and contribute to engineering best practices.

* Suggest and implement process improvements proactively to enhance system reliability and development efficiency.

Required

Skills & Experience:

* 3+ years of hands-on experience with Azure Cloud data services.

* Expertise in Azure Data Factory, Azure SQL Managed Instance, and Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS).

* Experience working with Azure Fabric Data Warehouse and managing data in One Lake.

* Strong skills in Python for data engineering and scripting.

* Proficient in Databricks, including configuration for external Parquet files and Delta sharing setup.

* Strong understanding of Parquet file formats, distributed processing, and big data pipelines.

* Strong understanding of T-SQL and ability to optimize queries for cloud-native execution

* Knowledge of Fabric notebooks (Python/Spark) for data transformation

* Experience with dataflows Gen2 in Fabric for ETL/ELT workloads

* Understanding of Fabric workspace management, capacity planning, and cost optimization

* Familiarity with Entra  (formerly Azure AD) authentication and security principals

* Design and implement medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold layers) in One Lake for data quality and Governance.

* Excellent communication skills with a proactive, innovative approach to problem-solving and continuous improvement.

Qualifications

* Exposure to media or entertainment industry data workflows is a plus.

* Experience with on-prem SQL Server and SSIS is beneficial.

* Familiarity with AI/ML-powered data tools and real-time data processing pipelines.

* Azure certification (e.g., Azure Data Engineer Associate) is a plus.

* Experience working in Agile teams with Dev Ops practices.

* Direct experience migrating from SQL Servers/SSIS to Azure Fabric is highly valued

* Experience with Power BI and understanding of…