VP Engineering - Data Products

Job Description:

We are looking for a senior engineering leader to own the technical roadmap for our enterprise-scale data and AI infrastructure. You will lead a multi-disciplinary engineering organization, set data platform and cloud architecture direction, and act as the bridge between hands-on solution design and commercial/vendor accountability. This role combines strong architectural credibility with people leadership, governance ownership, and stakeholder management across global clients.

Lead, grow and develop a multi-disciplinary engineering organization, providing mentorship to Development Leads and engineers, ensuring team composition is adequate, and hiring to fill gaps. Set and own the technical roadmap for the data platform, defining reference architectures and design patterns (e.g. medallion/layered architectures) that scale across multiple business units and data domains. Provide guidance, coaching and mentorship in modern data engineering practices, web application development, and best practices for diagnostics, debugging, testing, deploying, and troubleshooting.

Work with Product and Engineering teams to scope, plan and estimate the technical roadmap, aligning it to broader business goals and helping to forecast delivery timescales. Evaluate solution options against business requirements and organizational standards; champion rapid prototyping and proof-of-concept work to validate designs and de-risk delivery. Provide architectural oversight and mentorship to architects and engineers; maintain high standards of design documentation and contribute to the evolution of architectural reference models.

Foster constructive debates between Product, Engineering and UX teams to create scalable, client-focused solutions that solve business problems with software in the shortest sustainable lead-time. Establish and run governance frameworks for applications and data products, including certification and stewardship processes; ensure compliance with security, data privacy, and regulatory standards. Own platform security posture: access control, secrets management, naming/tagging conventions, and certification of new data products.

Lead the triage and remediation of platform security or data incidents. Build visibility into cloud and compute cost drivers; drive Fin Ops practices to optimize spend across environments. Design repeatable onboarding processes for new tools, analysts, and integrations. Manage vendor relationships, procurement processes and commercial contract negotiations, ensuring legal and compliance requirements are met. Provide technical oversight of 3rd party supplier partnerships.

Lead platform modernization and migration programs, including planning, sequencing, and risk management for large-scale technology transitions. Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends, assessing their potential impact and benefit to the overall business strategy, particularly AI/agentic capabilities and data infrastructure innovations.

Proven experience leading data engineering or data platform teams at a senior/head level, ideally within a large or matrixed organization. Industry experience working with Data platforms is essential, with strong background in dimensional data modelling, data pipeline development and data engineering in support of web applications. Strong hands‑on background in modern cloud data platforms (e.g. Databricks, Snowflake, or equivalent) and major cloud providers (Azure, AWS, or GCP).

Solid understanding of data governance, access control, and security practices in cloud environments. Experience with large-scale ETL/ELT design and migration programs. Demonstrated experience with cloud cost management and Fin Ops practices. Experience managing vendor contracts, procurement, and commercial negotiations. Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to communicate effectively across technical and non-technical audiences and global/matrixed teams. A structured, specification‑driven approach to requirements and delivery, with a preference for disciplined, release‑oriented delivery.

Able to demonstrate…