Director, Data Platform & Operations

Role

Description:

As the Director, Data Platforms and Operations, you will provide strategic leadership and operational oversight for Safety National’s enterprise data platforms, ensuring they are reliable, scalable, secure, and optimized to support analytics, reporting, and core business operations. You will lead teams responsible for data platform engineering and production operations, driving operational excellence through automation, monitoring, observability, and continuous improvement initiatives.

In this role, you will establish platform engineering standards, champion infrastructure‑as‑code and cloud‑native practices, and partner with architecture and engineering teams to align platform capabilities with enterprise data strategy. You will be accountable for production support, incident management, release governance, platform performance, cost optimization, and modernization efforts that enhance the long‑term sustainability of our data ecosystem.

You will foster a culture of accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement while mentoring and developing high‑performing teams. By balancing strategic vision with operational execution, you will ensure enterprise data platforms deliver measurable business value, operational transparency, and exceptional reliability.

Education:

Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Information Systems, or a related field is preferred.

Required Qualifications:

• 10 or more years of experience leading data engineering, platform operations, or related technical functions.
• 5 or more years of experience supporting cloud‑based data platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP, or similar environments).
• Demonstrated expertise in monitoring, observability, incident management, and production support for enterprise data systems.
• Proven ability to drive operational excellence, reliability, and performance optimization at scale.
• Strong strategic thinking skills with the ability to align technology and architectural decisions to business objectives.
• Excellent analytical, problem‑solving, and decision‑making capabilities.
• Ability to synthesize complex technical and business information and communicate effectively with senior leaders and stakeholders of varying technical backgrounds.
• Experience leading teams, developing talent, and fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• Must be presently authorized to work in the U.S. without a requirement for work authorization sponsorship by our company for this position now or in the future.
• This position allows for a hybrid work schedule which includes a minimum of 3 days per week in our St. Louis Corporate Office, located at 1832 Schuetz Rd., Saint Louis, MO.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Familiarity with modern data platforms and technologies such as Snowflake, DBT, Airflow, Azure Service Bus, Event Grid, Kubernetes, Terraform, or similar tools.
• Strong understanding of cloud cost optimization strategies and Fin Ops practices.
• Experience implementing automation frameworks and Dev Ops/Data Ops best practices.
• Experience driving infrastructure modernization and platform standardization initiatives.
• Experience building self‑service platform capabilities and operational automation solutions.

Benefits:

We offer a comprehensive total rewards package that includes base salary, holiday bonus, and incentive awards. Highlights include generous health, dental, and vision coverage; health savings accounts; a 401(k) retirement savings match; annual profit sharing; family‑forming benefits for adoption, fertility, and surrogacy; generous paid time off and paid holidays; paid parental and caregiver leave; a hybrid work environment; and company‑paid life insurance and disability.

Additionally, we provide professional growth and development opportunities, employee recognition, and well‑being programs.

Equal Opportunity Employer
This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor.