Senior Director, Semantic Data Platform

WEX Inc.; California (MO); Hybrid; USD 231,000 - 284,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Health insurance

Dental and vision insurances

Retirement savings plan

Paid time off

Health savings account

Flexible spending accounts

Life insurance

Disability insurance

Tuition reimbursement

And more

Job summary

WEX is reimagining its enterprise data platform to make data understandable to people, applications, and AI models. We seek a Senior Director to lead the next generation of our Data-as-a-Service platform and build the semantic foundation that connects data with business meaning.

This leader will define the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for semantic data, lead engineers, and partner with Product, AI, Analytics, Risk, and Finance to deliver trusted semantic objects across major business

Qualifications

• 15+ years in software/data engineering and related tech with leadership experience.
• Experience leading engineering teams responsible for large-scale data/platforms.
• Strong understanding of modern data architecture and data quality/governance.

Responsibilities

• Define the technical vision and multi-year roadmap for the semantic data platform.
• Lead engineers and senior leaders while partnering with Product, AI, Analytics, Risk, and Finance.
• Drive development of semantic modeling, metadata, knowledge graphs, and governance.
• Ensure platform delivers measurable customer and business outcomes.

Skills

Data engineering leadership

Distributed systems

Semantic data

Architectural judgment

Communication skills

Job description

About the Role

WEX is reimagining its enterprise data platform with an ambitious goal: make our data understandable not only to people and applications, but also to AI models and autonomous agents. We are looking for a Senior Director to lead the next generation of our Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) platform and build the semantic foundation that connects data with its business meaning. This leader will define and drive how WEX creates trusted semantic objects for our major business domains—such as customers, accounts, merchants, transactions, vehicles, payments, claims, and risk signals. These objects will bring together data, relationships, business definitions, derived attributes, policies, lineage, and context into reusable assets that can power analytics, data products, decisioning, and AI experiences. This is a highly visible leadership role. You will lead a team of senior engineers and technical leaders while partnering closely with Product, AI, Analytics, Risk, Finance, and business teams across WEX. The space is evolving quickly. We are not looking for someone who has already built an exact version of this platform. We are looking for a leader with deep data and platform experience, strong technical judgment, and the ability to help invent what the next generation of enterprise data platforms should become in an AI-native world.

How you'll make an impact

Define the technical vision, architecture, and multi-year roadmap for WEX's semantic data platform and next generation of Data as a Service. Build semantic business objects that bring together enterprise data, business context, relationships, metrics, derived attributes, rules, lineage, quality, and governance. Establish a scalable approach for creating semantic objects across WEX's different lines of business while maintaining consistent enterprise standards. Lead development of platform capabilities across semantic modeling, ontology, metadata, knowledge graphs, data quality, lineage, data contracts, and governance. Partner deeply with business and product leaders to capture business meaning that today may live across databases, applications, workflows, documents, spreadsheets, policies, and institutional knowledge. Enable AI and agentic applications to discover, understand, reason over, and safely act on trusted enterprise data. Build reusable platform capabilities and developer experiences that allow teams to create new data products and AI experiences faster. Lead and develop a high-performing organization of engineers, architects, and senior technical leaders. Partner with Principal and Staff engineers to establish architectural standards and solve complex distributed data and platform problems. Drive adoption across engineering and business teams, ensuring the platform delivers measurable customer and business outcomes—not simply new technology.

Experience you'll bring

15+ years of experience in software engineering, data engineering, distributed systems, data platforms, or related technology areas, including significant technical leadership experience. Experience leading engineering organizations responsible for large-scale data, platform, infrastructure, or developer capabilities. Deep understanding of modern data architecture, including large-scale data processing, streaming, lakehouse architectures, data products, and distributed systems. Deep understanding of semantic data technologies and industry direction is essential. Direct experience building a semantic data layer is strongly recommended. Demonstrated ability to translate complex business concepts into scalable technical abstractions and reusable platform capabilities. Strong understanding of data quality, governance, lineage, security, privacy, and operational reliability. Experience building platforms adopted by multiple engineering teams, business domains, or product organizations. Strong architectural judgment with the ability to evaluate tradeoffs and move comfortably between long-term strategy and detailed technical discussions. Demonstrated ability to influence senior technical, product, and business leaders across organizational boundaries. Experience hiring, mentoring, and developing senior engineering talent and technical leaders. Strong communication skills with the ability to explain complex technical concepts to engineering teams, business partners, and executive leadership.

Preferred experience

Experience building platforms that support AI/ML, generative AI, RAG, or agentic applications. Experience with knowledge representation, semantic search, context engineering, graph technologies, or AI-ready enterprise data. Experience modernizing large enterprise data ecosystems with multiple business domains and legacy systems. Experience driving a significant platform transformation from concept through enterprise adoption.

The base pay range represents the anticipated low and high end of the pay range for this position. Actual pay rates will vary and will be based on various factors, such as your qualifications, skills, competencies, and proficiency for the role. Base pay is one component of WEX's total compensation package.

Pay Range: $230,800.00 - $283,600.00

WEX's comprehensive and market competitive benefits are designed to support your personal and professional well-being.

• health
• dental and vision insurances
• retirement savings plan
• paid time off
• health savings account
• flexible spending accounts
• life insurance
• disability insurance
• tuition reimbursement
• and more

WEX is a global commerce platform that helps businesses solve for operational complexities like employee benefits, managing and mobilizing fleets, and streamlining payments. With over 6,500 employees, we work with large and small companies in more than 200 countries and territories, and can tailor our services to meet the unique needs of their businesses. We hire people who share our passion for continuous innovation and client service that is unparalleled in the industry.

If you’re looking for a growing career - come be part of WEX today.

WEX is an equal opportunity employer committed to diversity and inclusion in the workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, color, age, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, protected veteran status, disability or other protected status. WEX promotes a drug-free workplace. Qualified individuals with a disability have the right to request a reasonable accommodation. If you require a reasonable accommodation as a result of your disability at any point in the job application process, please submit your request through our Reasonable Accommodation Request Form. This form is for accommodation requests only and cannot be used to inquire about the status of applications.