Director, IT Data Engineering (NC)

Job Title: Director, IT Data Engineering

Location-Type: Hybrid (2 Days A Week On-Site - Raleigh, NC 27615)

Start Date Is: March 2026

Duration: Permanent/Direct Hire

Eligible Work Authorization: US-Citizen or Green Card (based on company policy)

Annual Base Salary Range: $190k - $215k ( 20% STI bonus)

Job Description:

The Director, IT Data Engineering will lead the enterprise data engineering function, driving strategy, architecture, and execution of scalable data platforms that enable advanced analytics, AI/ML initiatives, and business intelligence across the organization.

Day-to-Day Responsibilities:

Execute the enterprise data engineering roadmap aligned to business objectives.

Oversee design, development, and support of enterprise-scale data pipelines, data warehouses, and lakehouses across Azure and AWS environments.

Provide 60% hands-on leadership in production support and operational data solutions; 40% team leadership and strategy.

Lead incident management, operational excellence, and performance optimization efforts.

Partner with BI, Analytics, Data Science, Product, IT, and business leaders to translate requirements into scalable data solutions.

Establish and enforce best practices in data modeling, ETL/ELT, orchestration, metadata management, data quality, and observability.

Lead Customer Data Platform (CDP) architecture and integration to enable unified customer profiles and real-time activation.

Drive AI/ML enablement and establish MLOps best practices for model deployment and monitoring.

Manage and prioritize work for a blended team of onshore and offshore data engineers.

Mentor and develop a high-performing data engineering team.

Requirements:

Must-Have Skills/Experiences:

8 years of experience in data warehousing and ETL development (MS SSIS, Azure Data Factory, or similar).

6 years of advanced SQL development (queries, stored procedures, views, triggers, performance tuning).

3 years of experience leading and managing data engineering teams.

3 years of experience with reporting/visualization tools (SSRS, Power BI, Tableau).

Hands-on experience within a Microsoft data ecosystem (SQL Server, Azure SQL, ADF, Power BI, Fabric).

Experience leading AI-focused engineering initiatives or managing AI/ML teams.

Strong understanding of data governance, security, compliance, and enterprise data standards.

Ability to operate strategically while remaining hands-on in technical execution.

Excellent communication skills with both technical and business stakeholders.

Nice-to-Have Skills/Experiences (NOT required, but a plus!) :

Prior Director-level leadership experience.

Experience in healthcare or retail environments.

Experience in consulting or product-based software environments.

Experience implementing data lineage, observability, and metadata frameworks.

Familiarity with MLOps tools (MLflow, SageMaker, Kubeflow).

Experience leading multi-cloud (Azure AWS) data environments.