London-Based Data Platforms Director | AI-Ready Leader

Simple Machines; Greater London; Hybrid; GBP 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Simple Machines in London seeks a senior data leader to join the Global Data Practice leadership team. The role shapes our data platform capability across the UK and Europe, driving propositions, technical direction, and AI-enabled data ecosystems.

The role operates at executive, architectural, commercial, and delivery levels, with a five-year horizon for enterprise data platforms and modern data operating models.

Qualifications

• 10+ years in data engineering, platforms, analytics engineering, or data architecture.
• Proven consultancy and enterprise client-facing experience.
• Strong pre-sales, proposal development, and solution shaping capability.
• Experience architecting modern cloud-native data platforms at enterprise scale.
• Experience building data products and reusable enterprise data capabilities.
• Deep understanding of data mesh, federated governance, and scalable ownership models.
• Experience designing platforms for AI-native use cases and ML systems.
• Knowledge of real-time architectures and event-driven patterns.
• Ability to deliver governance, discoverability, and operability of data products.
• Familiarity with modern data stack technologies and engineering practices.
• Strong commercial acumen and ability to engage with senior stakeholders.
• Experience leading enterprise initiatives and high-performing teams.

Responsibilities

• Leading architecture and technical direction for enterprise data platforms and transformations.
• Advising clients on data platform strategy, architecture, and AI readiness.
• Driving pre-sales, proposals, and executive stakeholder engagement.
• mentoring recruitment and capability uplift across the engineering organisation.
• Building partnerships and staying current with platform capabilities and market direction.
• Leading major client initiatives in data engineering, platform modernisation, and AI enablement.

Skills

Data engineering

Data platforms

Analytics engineering

Data architecture

Enterprise client-facing

Pre-sales

Cloud-native architecture

Data products

Data mesh

Federated governance

Event-driven architecture

Real-time processing

Platform governance

Team leadership

Commercial acumen

Stakeholder engagement

Tools

GCP

AWS

Azure

Databricks

Snowflake

Kafka

Spark

dbt

Kubernetes

Airflow

Job description

Simple Machines in London seeks a senior data leader to join the Global Data Practice leadership team. The role shapes our data platform capability across the UK and Europe, driving propositions, technical direction, and AI-enabled data ecosystems.

The role operates at executive, architectural, commercial, and delivery levels, with a five-year horizon for enterprise data platforms and modern data operating models.