Director, Platform Development

Company Description

VERSANT is a leading force in news, sports and entertainment – home to iconic and trusted brands that inspire, inform, and delight audiences. Our unique combination of content, technology and services enriches the cultural fabric, igniting passions, sparking conversations, and connecting people to what they love most.

As an independent, publicly traded company, VERSANT brings together powerhouse cable networks – including USA Network, CNBC, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), Oxygen, E!, SYFY, and Golf Channel – with dynamic digital and direct-to-consumer brands such as Fandango, Rotten Tomatoes, Golf Now, Golf Pass, and Sports Engine. Together, these businesses reflect our commitment to delivering exceptional experiences across every screen and service.

VERSANT is an industry‑changing media company fueled by innovation and an entrepreneurial spirit. With a strong foundation and a forward‑looking vision, VERSANT empowers creativity, embraces change, and drives connection in an ever‑evolving world.

Versant Media’s Data Platforms team is the central data store across the enterprise. We unify disparate systems into a secure, well‑governed, real‑time data environment that powers downstream products, analytics, and content delivery experiences.

We are seeking a Director, Platform Development to lead the design, buildout, and evolution of our modern data platform. This is a hands‑on leadership role for someone who is equally comfortable writing production code, setting architectural direction, and managing a small but growing team.

In the near term, this role will be a key individual contributor responsible for building foundational platform capabilities. Over time, the focus will shift toward people leadership, planning, and execution management as the team scales.

This role reports to the VP of Data Platforms and is expected to act as a technical and operational anchor for the organization.

• Lead the design and implementation of core backend services and data platform components using Node.js and Type Script
• Establish and evolve platform architecture, design patterns, and engineering standards
• Own and triage intake requests, balancing short‑term delivery with long‑term platform health
• Partner closely with governance, analytics, and downstream consumers to ensure the platform supports:
  • Scalable data ingestion and access patterns
  • Lakehouse‑style architectures
  • ELT pipelines
  • Metadata, lineage, and governance requirements
• Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that enable safe, repeatable, and observable deployments
• Set expectations and best practices around:
  • Object‑oriented design and proven design patterns
  • Test‑driven development (TDD) and strong automated test coverage
  • Secure development lifecycle (SDL) principles
• Hire, mentor, and manage engineers as the team grows
• Conduct code and design reviews, providing clear technical guidance
• Collaborate effectively in a matrixed enterprise environment with both legacy systems and modern platforms
• Gradually transition from primary IC to people and execution leadership as the platform matures

• Deep foundation in software engineering fundamentals, including:
  • Object‑oriented programming
  • Design patterns
  • API and service design
• Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including:
  • Lakehouse architectures
  • ELT pipelines
  • Data governance, metadata, and lineage
• Experience building modular or microservice‑based systems
• Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring engineers (formal people management experience preferred, but not required)
• Strong commitment to code quality, testing, and automation
• Hands‑on experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern Dev Ops practices
• Comfortable operating with a high degree of ownership in a lean, fast‑moving environment
• Strong communicator who can translate between technical and non‑technical stakeholders

• Experience with ML platforms or services (e.g., Databricks, AWS Bedrock)
• Familiarity with analytics and BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, or similar)
• Experience working in media, streaming, or large‑scale enterprise environments
• Prior experience modernizing or integrating legacy systems into cloud‑native…