Lead DataOps / MLOps

Protective Life; Birmingham (AL); On-site; USD 125,000 - 170,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

401(k) with company match

Pension plan

Employee assistance program

Job summary

Protective Life seeks a DataOps/MLOps Lead to own the platform and operating model for data and ML systems on a Databricks Lakehouse on Azure. You will automate pipelines, establish Dagster-based orchestration, and lead CI/CD standards while mentoring engineers in a regulated insurance environment.

You will drive observability, governance, and secure data handling, balancing reliability with cost efficiency and regulatory requirements. This is a hands-on leadership role in Birmingham, AL.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in data, ML, or platform engineering, or SRE/DevOps, with production data/ML experience
• Technical leadership — setting standards, automation, mentoring engineers
• Strong CI/CD expertise with Azure DevOps and Git workflows
• Hands-on orchestration experience with Dagster or equivalent and data stack (dltHub, dbt) on Databricks
• MLOps experience — MLflow, model serving, monitoring, retraining automation
• IaC and Azure administration (Terraform, compute/storage/identity)
• Strong Python and SQL for automation
• Security, access control, and compliant handling of sensitive data
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience

Responsibilities

• Own the DataOps/MLOps platform and operating model — paved paths, automation and tooling for pipelines and models
• Lead CI/CD standards and Azure DevOps pipelines for data/ML deployments
• Standardize Dagster orchestration with reusable assets and run observability
• Operationalize ingestion and transformation stack (dltHub, dbt) with automated testing
• Build MLOps foundations — MLflow registry, model serving, monitoring, retraining
• Establish data/model observability — freshness, quality, lineage, latency, drift
• Manage Databricks Lakehouse on Azure — Unity Catalog governance and access controls
• Manage infrastructure as code and environments (Terraform)
• Own reliability and incident practices — on-call, runbooks, RCA, continuous improvement
• Drive FinOps cost visibility across compute/storage/model serving
• Automate governance and compliance — audit logs, inventories, approvals
• Provide technical leadership and mentorship to engineers

Skills

CI/CD

Python

SQL

Observability/SRE

Leadership

Security/Compliance

Data/ML Automation

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering

Tools

Dagster

dbt

Databricks Lakehouse

Azure DevOps

Terraform

Job description

The work we do has an impact on millions of lives, and you can be a part of it.

We help protect our customers against life’s uncertainties. Regardless of where you work within the company, you’ll be helping provide protection and peace of mind when our customers need it most.

Protective Life is transforming how it builds and operates software — moving to a product operating model organized around empowered, outcome-oriented teams — and is scaling its data and AI capabilities to serve customers and run the business better. Voyager is one of these product pods, spanning our Life, Annuities, and Employee Benefits lines.

The DataOps/MLOps Lead owns the platform and operating model that lets data and ML engineers ship reliably. You build the paved paths — CI/CD, orchestration, observability, environments, and governance automation — on our Databricks Lakehouse on Microsoft Azure, so that pipelines and models move from development to governed production quickly, safely, and repeatably.

This is a hands-on technical leadership role: you set standards, automate the operational backbone, mentor engineers, and are accountable for the reliability, security, cost, and auditability of the pod's data and ML systems in a regulated insurance environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the DataOps/MLOps platform and operating model — the paved paths, automation, and tooling that data and ML engineers use to build and run pipelines and models reliably
• Lead CI/CD standards and pipelines in Azure DevOps (ADO) for data pipelines and ML models — build, test, and release automation, environment promotion, and repeatable, auditable deployments
• Standardize orchestration on Dagster — reusable assets, scheduling, backfills, dependency management, and run observability across the pod's pipelines
• Operationalize the ingestion and transformation stack — dlt (dltHub) and dbt — with automated testing, CI checks, and safe deployment of changes
• Build MLOps foundations with the ML engineering team — MLflow model registry, Databricks Model Serving, automated deployment, monitoring, drift detection, and retraining triggers
• Establish data and model observability — freshness, quality, lineage, latency, drift, and cost — with alerting and clear SLAs/SLOs
• Administer and govern the Databricks Lakehouse on Azure — workspace configuration, Unity Catalog governance, access controls, and policy automation
• Manage infrastructure as code and environments — reproducible dev/test/prod setups (e.g., Terraform), secrets management, and least-privilege access
• Own reliability and incident practices — on-call, runbooks, root-cause analysis, and continuous improvement for data and ML services
• Drive cost visibility and optimization (FinOps) across compute, storage, and model serving
• Automate governance and compliance controls — audit logging, model and pipeline inventories, approval workflows, and evidence collection for a regulated environment
• Provide technical leadership and mentoring — coach engineers on operational excellence and set the platform standards the pod builds on

Qualifications

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• 8+ years in data, ML, or platform engineering, or in SRE/DevOps, including several years operating production data and/or ML systems
• Demonstrated technical leadership — setting standards, building paved paths and automation, and mentoring engineers (formal people management not required, but valued)
• Strong CI/CD expertise with Azure DevOps (ADO) — build/release pipelines, environment promotion, automated testing — and Git-based workflows
• Hands‑on experience with orchestration (Dagster or equivalent) and the modern data stack — dlt (dltHub) ingestion and dbt modeling — on a Databricks lakehouse (Delta Lake)
• MLOps experience — MLflow model registry, model deployment/serving, monitoring, drift detection, and retraining automation
• Infrastructure‑as‑code and cloud platform administration on Microsoft Azure (compute, storage, identity, networking basics); Terraform or equivalent
• Strong Python and SQL for automation and tooling
• Experience with observability/monitoring tooling and SRE practices — SLAs/SLOs, alerting, and incident management
• Demonstrated rigor in security, access control, and secure, compliant handling of sensitive data
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field — or equivalent practical experience

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in financial services or insurance platform work, and familiarity with model risk and regulatory audit expectations
• Databricks administration — Unity Catalog, cluster policies, and Mosaic AI — and familiarity with Azure Machine Learning
• Containerization and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes; Azure AKS or Container Apps)
• Experience with data-quality / observability tooling (e.g., Great Expectations, Monte Carlo, or similar)
• Experience automating responsible-AI and model-governance controls
• Relevant certification such as Databricks Certified Data Engineer/ML Engineer, Microsoft Azure DevOps Engineer, or Azure Administrator

Employee Benefits:

We aim to protect the wellbeing of our employees and their families with a broad benefits offering. In addition to offering comprehensive health, dental and vision insurance, we support emotional wellbeing through mental health benefits and an employee assistance program. Work/life balance is important and Protective offers a variety of paid time away benefits (e.g., paid time off, paid parental leave, short‑term disability, and a cultural observance day). The financial health of our employees is just as important as physical and emotional health. Some of the financial wellbeing benefits include contributions to healthcare accounts, a pension plan, and a 401(k) plan with Company matching. All employees are encouraged to protect their overall wellbeing by engaging in ProHealth Rewards, Protective’s platform to improve wellbeing while earning cash rewards.

Eligibility for certain benefits may vary by position in accordance with the terms of the Company’s benefit plans.

Accommodations for Applicants with a Disability

If you require an accommodation to complete the application and recruitment process due to a disability, please email [e-mail]. This information will be held in confidence and used only to determine an appropriate accommodation for the application and recruitment process.

Please note that the above email is solely for individuals with disabilities requesting an accommodation. General employment questions should not be sent through this process.

We are proud to be an equal opportunity employer committed to being inclusive and attracting, retaining, and growing an inclusive workforce.

Protective’s targeted salary range for this position is $124,500 to $170,000. Actual salaries may vary depending on factors, including but not limited to job location, skills, and experience. The range listed is just one component of Protective’s total compensation package for employees.

This position also offers additional incentive opportunities through an annual incentive based on individual and Company performance.