Lead Platform Engineer

The J.M. Smucker Company; Akron (OH); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

The J.M. Smucker Company in Orrville, OH is seeking a Lead Platform Engineer to drive governance, standardization, and operational excellence for the Enterprise Data Platform.

You will own administration across Tableau Cloud, Databricks, and Atlan, ensuring secure, scalable analytics and trusted data products for analytics, data science, and data engineering teams. Hybrid work with onsite presence required, typically 9 days per month, and close collaboration with Architecture, Security,

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience.
• 5+ years of experience in platform engineering or data platform roles.
• Strong experience with enterprise-scale Tableau and analytics environments.
• Proven ability to define platform standards and drive adoption at scale.
• Experience with cloud-based analytics ecosystems and modern data platforms.
• Experience with data governance, security and access control frameworks.
• Proficiency in Python, Terraform and SQL.

Responsibilities

• Define, implement, and govern platform administration, standards, architectural patterns, and guardrails.
• Lead Databricks administration, Unity Catalog governance, and metadata management.
• Define how platform capabilities support scalable analytics and data pipelines.
• Establish CI/CD processes and IaC standards for deployment and automation.
• Monitor health, performance, and platform SLAs across Tableau Cloud and Databricks.
• Manage platform releases, upgrades, change management, and rollback planning.
• Collaborate with Risk, Security, and Governance for audit readiness and compliance.
• Manage vendor relationships and assess roadmaps to drive business value.

Skills

Databricks administration

Tableau administration

Python

Terraform

SQL

Platform engineering

Education

Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience

Tools

Tableau Cloud

Databricks

Atlan

Terraform (IaC)

Job description

Your Opportunity as the Lead Platform Engineer, Enterprise Data Platform

The Lead Platform Engineer serves as the technical authority responsible for defining the administration, governance, and operational excellence of the Enterprise Data Platform. This role drives platform standardization, performance, governance, and usability, ensuring that analytics, data science, and data engineering teams can efficiently build, access, and trust data products. The role is accountable for end-to-end platform health, including Tableau Cloud administration, Databricks platform configuration, Atlan configuration and overall ecosystem reliability. It establishes the technical foundation that supports scalable analytics, models, reporting, and data engineering workloads across the enterprise.

Location: Orrville, OH (Close proximity to Cleveland/Akron)

Work Arrangements: Hybrid - onsite a minimum of 9 days a month primarily during core weeks as determined by the Company; maybe more as business need requires

Platform Architecture & Standards

• Define, implement, and govern platform administration, standards, architectural patterns, and operational guardrails across Tableau Cloud, Databricks, Atlan, and related analytics technologies.
• Establish scalable and secure platform architectures, including environment strategy, permissions models, workspace design, content promotion, job orchestration, and compute governance.
• Standardize deployment, configuration, and operational processes to improve consistency, reliability, and maintainability across the analytics ecosystem.
• Drive adoption of platform best practices through collaboration with engineering, architecture, security, and business teams while ensuring alignment with enterprise governance and data management policies.

Platform Enablement

• Lead Databricks database administration practices, including Unity Catalog governance, schema and metadata management, performance optimization, storage lifecycle management, data retention, and access control standards
• Define how platform capabilities are used to support scalable analytics and data pipelines
• Establish standards for job execution and scheduling
• Ensure platform supports medallion architecture patterns and modern ingestion approaches

Reliability, Observability & Performance

• Own the monitoring, observability, and operational health strategy for Tableau Cloud, Databricks, Atlan, and related analytics platforms.
• Establish proactive health checks, alerting frameworks, and performance monitoring capabilities to ensure platform reliability, availability, and service quality.
• Drive continuous optimization of platform performance by identifying and resolving issues affecting dashboards, data pipelines, compute resources, and end-user experience.
• Define, monitor, and communicate platform SLAs, KPIs, and operational metrics while leading vendor engagement and escalation management to support service excellence.

DevOps & Automation

• Define, design and implement DevOps standards, deployment processes, and release management practices across Tableau Cloud, Databricks, Atlan, and supporting platform technologies.
• Design, implement, and continuously improve CI/CD processes that enable secure, reliable, and repeatable deployment of platform configurations, analytics assets, and data products.
• Establish Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) standards to improve consistency, scalability, auditability, and operational efficiency across environments.
• Drive automation of platform provisioning, configuration management, access controls, monitoring, and operational processes to reduce manual administration and improve service quality.

Cost Optimization & Efficiency

• Design and implement platform cost management standards, ensuring efficient utilization of compute, storage, licensing, and infrastructure resources.
• Monitor platform consumption and performance metrics to identify optimization opportunities and drive cost-effective, scalable platform operations.

Platform Operations & Lifecycle Management

• Own platform operations, incident management, escalations, and root cause analysis, driving corrective actions that improve platform reliability and service quality.
• Lead platform releases, upgrades, change management, and deployment governance, including testing, validation, communication, and rollback planning.
• Partner with Risk, Security, and Governance teams to ensure audit readiness, disaster recovery, business continuity, and adherence to enterprise compliance requirements.

Product management

• Manage strategic vendor relationships and partnership activities, collaborating with platform owners and technology leaders to evaluate vendor roadmaps, influence product direction, and drive adoption of capabilities that deliver measurable business value.
• Assess platform investments, vendor offerings, and emerging technologies to ensure platform capabilities, contracts, and roadmaps align with organizational objectives and long-term platform strategy.

What we are looking for:

Minimum Requirements:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of experience in platform engineering, analytics platform administration, or data platform roles
• Strong experience supporting enterprise-scale Tableau and analytics environments
• Proven ability to define platform standards and drive adoption at scale
• Experience supporting modern data platforms and cloud-based analytics ecosystems
• Experience operating within data transformation or modernization initiatives
• Demonstrated success leading complex cross-functional initiatives involving Architecture, Security, Infrastructure, Governance, Data Engineering, and Analytics teams
• Deep expertise in Databricks, Tableau or related administration and optimization
• Strong experience with Databricks administration, platform configuration and operations
• Advanced understanding of analytics platform design and data access patterns
• Experience implementing monitoring, observability, and performance tuning solutions
• Strong knowledge of data governance, security, and access control frameworks
• Python, Terraform, SQL

Additional skills and experience that we think would make someone successful in this role (not required):

• Audit and compliance controls
• Catalog and governance tools such as Atlan
• Medallion architecture and data modeling concepts
• Cloud platforms like AWS
• Data ingestion platforms such as Fivetran
• CI/CD, automation, and deployment practices
• Cloud platform concepts and data storage architectures
• Analytics Platform support with current and future AI capabilities

TheRight Placefor You

We are bold, kind, strive to do the right thing, we play to win, and we believe in a strong community that thrives together. Our culture is rooted in our Basic Beliefs, and we believe in supporting every employee by meeting their physical, emotional, and financial needs.

Stay connected with us on LinkedIn

We're an equal opportunity employer. All applicants will be considered for employment without attention to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, age, national origin, disability status or protected veteran status.