Director of Engineering - Data Platform

FormativGroup, LLC; Austin (TX); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 225,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Comprehensive benefits package

401(k)

Job summary

FormativGroup is seeking a Director of Engineering to lead and scale the engineering organization behind a perimeter-safe data lineage and migration impact-analysis platform for regulated enterprises. You will own how we ship—delivery, quality, security readiness, engineering process, and roadmap execution—partnering with the Chief Architect to align the team with product IP and roadmap.

You will build the team, set the cadence, push practical AI across coding, testing, and ops, and drive

Qualifications

• Leadership experience in building and growing engineering teams.
• Hands-on depth in data platforms or backend systems.
• Experience starting or rebuilding an engineering function in startup/early-stage.
• Experience implementing testing, QA, CI/CD, and release processes.
• Familiarity with security/compliance for regulated buyers (SOC 2).

Responsibilities

• Lead distributed engineering teams across platform, product, QA, DevOps, AI, and data governance.
• Own delivery, quality, release discipline, and roadmap execution.
• Install and mature testing, CI/CD, QA, and release governance where absent.
• Drive perimeter-safe deployments, containerization, IaC, and secure deployment.

Skills

Engineering leadership

Data platforms

Team building

CI/CD

SOC 2 security

Job description

Lead the engineering function behind an early-stage data platform built for regulated enterprises.

At FormativGroup, we help organizations modernize the systems, data, and workflows that keep their businesses moving.

We are hiring a Director of Engineering to lead and grow the engineering org behind a perimeter-safe data lineage and migration impact-analysis platform for regulated enterprises. We're early: a real, working product becoming a standalone business. This is a build.

You will own how we ship: delivery, quality, security readiness, engineering process, and roadmap execution. You'll partner closely with the Chief Architect, who holds the deep product IP, while bringing order to a capable distributed team.

What You'll Work On

As Director of Engineering, you will:

• Lead a distributed engineering team across platform/product engineering, connectors, QA, DevOps/infra, AI implementation, data governance, and support.
• Own delivery, quality, release discipline, and execution of the technical roadmap.
• Install engineering discipline where it's thin: automated testing, QA, CI/CD, release governance, and versioning.
• Drive repeatable, perimeter-safe deployments, including containerization, infrastructure-as-code, secure deployment, and SOC 2 readiness.
• Partner with the Chief Architect on the connector framework, canonical metadata model, architecture decisions, and product IP.
• Build the team: assess current talent, retain the strong, hire the gaps, and align the team plan to the roadmap.
• Push practical AI use across coding, review, testing, ops, and engineering productivity.

What You'll Bring

You will likely be successful in this role if you have:

• Engineering leadership experience; you have run and grown teams, managed engineers, owned delivery, and shipped real product.
• Hands-on technical depth in data platforms, metadata, backend systems, or platform engineering; enough to earn the respect of strong engineers.
• Experience building or rebuilding an engineering function from the ground up, especially in a startup or early-stage environment.
• Experience installing testing, QA, CI/CD, release process, or quality practices where they did not already exist.
• Experience directly managing distributed or offshore engineering teams across time zones.
• Security and compliance literacy for regulated buyers, including SOC 2, audit logging, SSO, data security, or secure deployment.
• Strong AI fluency, with concrete examples of how you use AI in your own work and across engineering teams.

How You Work

• You are a player-coach: technical enough to go deep, practical enough to ship, and comfortable getting into the work when needed.
• You operate with incomplete information and define the path when there is not one.
• You bring order without slowing momentum; you raise the floor on quality, process, and security while keeping the team building.

Bonus Points If You Have

• Experience taking an early-stage product to enterprise-grade maturity.
• Background in regulated industries such as financial services, insurance, healthcare, or government.
• Familiarity with perimeter/on-prem deployment, lineage, metadata, graph data, or migration impact-analysis problems.

What Success Looks Like

• The team has clear ownership, a stronger delivery rhythm, and a credible roadmap-to-release model.
• Testing, QA, CI/CD, release governance, and versioning are in place without slowing product momentum.
• The product is moving toward enterprise-grade readiness for regulated buyers.
• You are a trusted partner to the Chief Architect and a credible leader for engineers, product stakeholders, and executives.

Why Join FormativGroup

At FormativGroup, you’ll work with people who are practical, collaborative, and focused on solving meaningful business and technology problems. We’re growing, which means you’ll have opportunities to contribute ideas, work closely with experienced leaders, and help shape how we deliver for clients.

Applicants must be authorized to work for ANY employer in the U.S. We are unable to sponsor or take over sponsorship of an employment visa currently .

To be considered for this position, candidates must reside in one of the following U.S. states: AL, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, NC, NH, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, PA, TN, TX, VA, WI, and Washington DC. Candidatesresidingoutside these states are noteligible for consideration currently.

We are committed to pay equity and transparency. The compensation range for this position represents our good faith estimate of the range we reasonably expect to pay for this role at the time of posting. The actual compensation offered will be determined based on factors such as the candidate’s experience, skills, education, work location, and internal equity.

In addition to base pay, employees may be eligible for discretionary bonuses, commissions, or other incentive programs, as well as a comprehensive benefits package that includes medical, dental, vision, 401(k), paid time off, etc.

$180,000 - $225,000 USD

FormativGroupoperates within the critical middle layer of business technology, where applications and systems connect infrastructure to business processes. We are specialists who help the middle market take full advantage of their technology investments with deep, industry-centricexpertise, all in one place, to unify fragmented systems. With deep technicalexpertiseacross cloud architecture, system integration, AI, and data strategy, we bridge the gap between business goals and modern platforms.

FormativGroup is an equal opportunity employer providing opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or protected veteran status.

ADA Specifications: Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions of this position.

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