Director, Data Platforms

Director, Data Platforms

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The Director of Data Platforms is the technology leader responsible for the vision, strategy, operations, and continuous improvement of Farm Credit Financial Partners’ enterprise data ecosystem. This role defines and drives FPI’s Lakehouse strategy, Databricks adoption, data engineering direction, observability, AI enablement, data availability, and platform modernization, ensuring secure, accurate, and timely data delivery for all ACA customers and internal stakeholders.

The Director owns the strategic roadmap for data ingestion, transformation, quality, integration, lineage, metadata, storage, and platform reliability.

• Define the multi-year data platform strategy, including modernization, AI enablement, governance integration, and cloud-native capabilities.
• Own the technical strategy of the Lakehouse environment.
• Ensure platform design meets financial-sector requirements for availability, resiliency, auditability, and scale.
• Drive adoption of modern data engineering patterns (streaming, automation, MLOps, domain-oriented modeling, Data Lake best practices).
• Lead and manage data engineering and data governance teams.
• Ensure robust monitoring, observability, alerting, and incident management across all data flows.
• Oversee performance and daily operational SLAs, including the critical ACA data availability window.
• Serve as the organizational owner of Databricks strategy, engineering standards, and optimization.
• Ensure secure, well-governed, cost-optimized use of compute and storage.
• Build platform capabilities to support advanced analytics and enterprise AI (GenAI and ML).
• Partner with Data Governance, Security, and Compliance teams to embed controls into platform design.
• Ensure platforms support end-to-end lineage, metadata accuracy, and audit-ready documentation.
• Oversee access management, data contracts, schema controls, and segregation-of-duties policies.
• Build scalable governance automation into engineering workflows.
• Develop talent pipelines and succession plans for data engineering and platform roles.
• Establish a culture of reliability, automation-first engineering, operational excellence, and innovation.
• Drive transformation from legacy approaches to modern, cloud-based, AI-enabled data platform methods.

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• 12+ years of experience in data engineering, data platforms, or cloud architecture with at least 5 years leading multi-team organizations.
• Deep expertise with Databricks technologies, including Spark, workflows, cluster management, and Unity Catalog.
• Proven experience running mission-critical data platforms with strict SLAs and monitoring.
• Strong understanding of AI/ML engineering and enabling infrastructure.
• Experience with data governance integration (lineage, metadata, schema management, Collibra or similar).
• Demonstrated success in leading modernization programs and large-scale cloud platform initiatives.
• Excellent communication and relationship-building skills with technical and executive stakeholders.
• Experience working in financial services or other regulated industries highly preferred.

• Oversee daily team operations, ensure alignment with organizational policies, and facilitate effective communication and collaboration.
• Provide clear direction, goals, and priorities to direct reports and mentor them to enhance skills and professional development.
• Foster a positive and inclusive work environment that supports employee engagement.
• Address conflicts professionally and fairly, escalating issues with HR when necessary.
• Ensure adherence to labor laws, workplace standards, and ethical practices.
• Manage administrative responsibilities such as timecards, time-off requests, and compliance tasks.
• Conduct performance reviews and provide continuous feedback.
• Oversee talent management processes including hiring, termination, performance evaluations, and pay reviews.

• Work in person as required and attend…