AI-Ready Data Platform Director

Simple Machines; Sydney; On-site; AUD 220,000 - 320,000; Full time

Job summary

Simple Machines in Sydney seeks a senior Director Technology - Data Platform Engineering to lead our Global Data Practice. This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on engineering, shaping our data platform propositions and guiding enterprise clients through AI-native modernisation.

You will operate across executive, architectural, commercial and delivery domains, build partnerships with technology vendors, mentor teams, and drive platform modernisation across ANZ.

Qualifications

• 10+ years’ experience across hands-on data engineering, data platforms, analytics engineering, or data architecture
• Strong pre-sales, proposal development, and solution shaping capability
• Experience architecting and delivering modern cloud-native data platforms at enterprise scale
• Experience developing solutions centred around data products and reusable enterprise data capabilities
• Deep understanding of data mesh principles, federated governance, and scalable domain-oriented data ownership models
• Experience designing platforms and architectures to support AI-native use cases, machine learning systems
• Strong understanding of real-time and event-driven architectures, including streaming data systems
• Experience building platforms that govern, discoverable, reusable data products across large organisations
• Familiarity with contemporary data stack technologies and modern engineering practices
• Strong understanding of platform architecture, distributed data systems, governance, and scalable data product design
• Experience with technologies and ecosystems such as GCP, AWS, Azure, Databricks, Snowflake, Kafka, Spark, dbt, Kubernetes, Airflow, ML/AI enablement, or similar modern platform tooling

Responsibilities

• Part of the Global Data Practice leadership team
• Helping define and evolve Simple Machines’ data platform propositions, technical direction, and strategic positioning
• Advising enterprise clients on modern data platform strategy, architecture, operating models, and AI readiness
• Supporting organisations as they evolve from traditional centralised data platforms toward AI-native, real-time, and data product-oriented operating models
• Working closely with Engagement Managers and senior leadership across major strategic initiatives
• Leading architecture and technical direction for complex enterprise data platform and transformation programs
• Acting as a senior technical counterpart across strategic client engagements and partner relationships
• Pre-sales, proposal development, technical solution shaping, and executive stakeholder engagement
• Building trusted relationships with strategic technology partners and staying current with emerging platform capabilities and market direction
• Supporting recruitment, mentoring, capability uplift, and practice development across the broader engineering organisation
• Leading major client initiatives across data engineering, platform modernisation, AI enablement, and operational data systems
• Contributing to thought leadership, market positioning, and growth initiatives across ANZ.

Skills

Data platform leadership

Cloud-native data platforms

Data mesh & governance

Real-time data processing

AI enablement

Client engagement

Pre-sales / solution shaping

Mentoring teams

Tools

GCP

AWS

Azure

Databricks

Snowflake

Kafka

Spark

dbt

Kubernetes

Airflow

ML/AI enablement

Job description

Simple Machines in Sydney seeks a senior Director Technology - Data Platform Engineering to lead our Global Data Practice. This role blends strategic leadership with hands-on engineering, shaping our data platform propositions and guiding enterprise clients through AI-native modernisation.

You will operate across executive, architectural, commercial and delivery domains, build partnerships with technology vendors, mentor teams, and drive platform modernisation across ANZ.