Director - Database, Backups Storage

Director of Data, Storage, and Backups

The Director of Data, Storage, and Backups is responsible for overseeing the strategy, architecture, management, and optimization of the company’s data storage and backup infrastructure. This role requires a deep understanding of databases, storage solutions, and backup methodologies. The Director will lead a team of IT professionals, working closely with other departments to ensure data security, availability, and scalability. The Director should have a good understanding of open‑source, vendor‑neutral database and storage technologies compatible with Kubernetes containerized environments.

• Drive the strategy for data storage, backup, and recovery to support business goals and risk management requirements.
• Define and oversee the integration of containerized database solutions, including MSSQL and PostgreSQL on Kubernetes, to support scalable and portable deployments.
• Lead database modernization initiatives using open-source, containerized, and cloud-native technologies.

• Develop policies for data retention, storage, and backup to ensure compliance with contracts and regulatory frameworks.

• Manage and optimize cloud-based (AWS, Azure) and on‑premise storage solutions, ensuring high performance, scalability, and data integrity.
• Define and prioritize data product requirements and develop and maintain data product roadmaps.
• Oversee storage class provisioning and volume snapshotting for containerized environments.
• Develop and implement robust backup strategies and disaster recovery plans that align with business continuity goals. Oversee regular testing and optimization of recovery systems.
• Implement and manage backup tools across the environment with automated workflows.
• Vendor and stakeholder management: manage relationships with storage and backup solution providers and align solutions with business needs.
• Identify and build strong data partnerships to procure and make company data more valuable and actionable, regularly benchmarking data integrity and quality.

• Lead a cross‑functional team responsible for data management, storage, and backups. Foster a culture of collaboration and innovation.
• Act as a subject matter expert in all aspects of databases and applications, providing technical guidance and expertise.
• Provide mentorship on database and storage internals, high availability strategies, and Kubernetes‑native storage architectures.

• Ensure databases, storage and backup processes comply with security standards and support SSAE
  18 audit requirements.
• Collaborate with the Security leader to address audit findings.

• Implement systems to monitor storage and backup performance. Identify and resolve capacity, performance, and data availability issues.
• Continuously assess database performance and resilience within the platform, applying observability best practices using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, and others.

• Work with data consumers, ETL developers, and application teams to ensure seamless integration of storage systems with applications and business processes.
• Collaborate closely with platform engineering teams to manage database instances.

• Good understanding of container orchestration (Kubernetes), cloud‑native design principles, and infrastructure automation (Terraform, Ansible, Helm).
• In‑depth understanding of disaster recovery strategies and business continuity planning.
• Experience with storage management tools and data protection solutions.
• Familiarity with data encryption, data security standards, and industry best practices.
• Strong knowledge and experience working with APIs; innovative and logical thinker.
• Working knowledge of data management technologies such as MS SQL, PostgreSQL, Snowflake, Elasticsearch, and other data stores, plus Business Intelligence tools.
• Technical expertise in data, its standardization and transformation.
• Strong knowledge of data storage technologies and data backup solutions.

• Minimum of 8 years of…