Director, Data Platforms

POSITION SUMMARY

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.

Duties And Responsibilities

• 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 the adoption of modern data engineering patterns (streaming, automation, MLOps, domain-oriented modeling, Data Lake best practices).
• Leadership of Data Engineering & Platform Operations.
• Ensure robust monitoring, observability, alerting, and incident management across all data flows.
• Serve as the organizational owner of Databricks strategy, engineering standards, and optimization.
• Ensure secure, well-governed, cost-optimized use of computers and storage.
• Build platform capabilities to support advanced analytics and enterprise AI (GenAI and ML).
• Partner closely with Data Governance, Security, and Compliance teams to embed controls into platform design.
• Oversee access management, data contracts, schema controls, and segregation-of-duties policies.
• Build scalable governance automation into engineering workflows.
• 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.
• Manage daily team operations to ensure alignment with organizational policies while facilitating effective communication, collaboration, continual improvement, and knowledge sharing within the team and across organization.
• Provide clear direction, goals, and priorities to direct report(s) while mentoring them to enhance their skills and support their professional development.
• Foster a positive and inclusive work environment that supports employee engagement.
• Address conflicts with professionalism and fairness, serving as the first point of contact for employee(s) communication and escalating issues appropriately in collaboration with HR when necessary.
• Ensure employee(s) adherence to organizational policies and procedures by promoting and modeling compliance with labor laws, workplace standards, and ethical practices in all people management activities.
• Manage administrative responsibilities, including reviewing and approving weekly timecards, processing time-off requests, tracking compliance tasks, and supporting team adherence to organizational policies and deadlines.
• Conduct performance reviews by setting and communicating clear expectations and objectives, monitoring performance against goals, providing continuous feedback, and addressing performance issues promptly and effectively.
• Oversee talent management processes for reports, including hiring, termination, performance evaluations, and pay reviews, ensuring alignment with unit objectives and adherence to company policies and procedures.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or related field (Master’s preferred).
• Typically, 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.
• 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.