Global Data Architect & Chief Engineer — AI-Forward Platform Leader

Jeppesen ForeFlight; Austin (TX); On-site; USD 208,000 - 255,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Medical, dental, vision insurance with

Open PTO Policy

401(k) with up to 10% company matching

12 Weeks Paid Maternity Leave

4 Weeks Paid Paternity Leave

Flight Training Rewards

Job summary

Jeppesen ForeFlight seeks a Chief Engineer, Global Data to lead technical strategy for data platforms and pipelines, partnering with Global Data leadership to accelerate modernization. This role emphasizes AI-forward thinking, architectural excellence, and cross-functional influence across Engineering, Product, Data Production, Architecture, Security, and Operations.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience guiding data-intensive systems, delivering scalable, secure solutions, and

Qualifications

• 15+ years of software engineering, data engineering, platform engineering, architecture, or technical leadership experience.
• Experience operating as a senior technical leader across complex, distributed, data-intensive systems.
• Strong architecture judgment across data platforms, APIs, pipelines, cloud infrastructure, distributed systems, integration patterns, and operational tooling.
• AI-forward mindset with practical experience or strong fluency in applying AI to engineering, data quality, automation, analytics, knowledge workflows, developer productivity, or intelligent products.
• Strong ability to simplify complex technical issues into clear decisions, priorities, and executive-level narratives.
• Experience improving engineering execution: planning, technical discovery, delivery quality, observability, incident learning, and operational excellence.
• Strong understanding of data governance, data quality, data lineage, metadata, validation, and lifecycle management.
• Ability to work across legacy systems and modern cloud-native architectures.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills; able to engage deeply with engineers and clearly with executives.
• Builder mindset: willing to prototype, inspect systems directly, ask sharp questions, and turn ambiguity into forward motion.
• High judgment, low ego, and strong bias for practical outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the senior technical partner to Global Data leadership, helping translate business strategy into technical priorities, execution plans, and measurable outcomes.
• Define and drive technical strategy across global data platforms, data production systems, data quality, data governance, data delivery, and data-enabled products.
• Act as a technical chief of staff for high-priority initiatives: clarify goals, structure work, identify dependencies, unblock teams, and ensure execution quality.
• Partner with Engineering, Product, Data Production, Architecture, Security, Operations, Customer Success, and business leaders to align roadmap, architecture, and delivery.
• Lead technical reviews for major initiatives, ensuring solutions are scalable, resilient, secure, maintainable, and aligned with long-term platform direction.
• Identify opportunities to apply AI, automation, machine learning, intelligent QA, data validation, workflow orchestration, and developer productivity tools across the Global Data organization.
• Help modernize legacy systems, processes, and data pipelines while maintaining the reliability and trust required for aviation data.
• Establish technical standards, architecture patterns, engineering practices, and decision frameworks that improve quality and speed.
• Drive improvements in data quality, lineage, observability, reliability, validation, and operational excellence.
• Create clear technical narratives, executive briefings, decision documents, tradeoff analyses, and implementation plans.
• Partner with product and business leaders to evaluate build/buy/partner decisions, investment cases, and platform modernization opportunities.
• Mentor senior engineers, architects, technical leads, and emerging leaders across the organization.
• Build a culture of high agency, technical rigor, pragmatic innovation, and continuous improvement.

Skills

AI-forward mindset

Cross-functional leadership

Architecture judgment

Executive communication

Data governance

Cloud platforms

Operational excellence

Job description

Jeppesen ForeFlight seeks a Chief Engineer, Global Data to lead technical strategy for data platforms and pipelines, partnering with Global Data leadership to accelerate modernization. This role emphasizes AI-forward thinking, architectural excellence, and cross-functional influence across Engineering, Product, Data Production, Architecture, Security, and Operations.

The ideal candidate has extensive experience guiding data-intensive systems, delivering scalable, secure solutions, and