VP Engineering - Data Products

dentsuaegis; United States; On-site; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Job summary

Dentsu Aegis seeks a senior engineering leader to own the technical roadmap for enterprise-scale data and AI infrastructure. You will guide a multi-disciplinary team, set data platform and cloud architecture direction, and bridge hands-on design with vendor accountability across global clients.

You will mentor development leads, define reference architectures, promote modern data engineering practices, and align delivery with business goals while maintaining security and compliance standards.

Qualifications

• Proven experience leading data engineering or data platform teams.
• Strong cloud data platform experience and architecture leadership.
• Experience with Databricks, Snowflake and major cloud providers (Azure/AWS/GCP).
• Knowledge of data governance, security, and compliance in cloud environments.
• Experience in vendor management, procurement, and contract negotiations.
• Excellent stakeholder communication across technical and non-technical teams.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow a multi-disciplinary engineering organization, mentoring leads and engineers, and driving hiring to fill gaps.
• Set and own the technical roadmap for the data platform, defining scalable architectures and reference patterns.
• Provide guidance on modern data engineering practices and best practices for diagnostics, testing, and deployment.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to scope, plan, and estimate roadmaps aligned to business goals.
• Evaluate options against requirements, champion rapid prototyping and PoCs to de-risk delivery.
• Provide architectural oversight and maintain design documentation and reference models.
• Foster cross-functional collaboration between Product, Engineering and UX to deliver client-focused solutions.
• Establish governance frameworks for applications and data products, ensuring security and regulatory compliance.
• Own platform security posture: access control, secrets management, and incident triage/remediation.
• Build visibility into cloud costs and drive FinOps practices across environments.
• Manage vendor relationships and supplier partnerships, including contract negotiations.
• Lead platform modernization and migration programs with risk management.
• Stay updated on AI/ML trends and data infrastructure innovations.

Skills

Leadership

Cloud architecture

Stakeholder management

Data platform design

Python

SQL

FinOps

Governance knowledge

Tools

Databricks

Snowflake

Azure

AWS

GCP

PowerBI

Tableau

Job description

Job Description:

We are looking for a senior engineering leader to own the technical roadmap for our enterprise-scale data and AI infrastructure. You will lead a multi-disciplinary engineering organization, set data platform and cloud architecture direction, and act as the bridge between hands-on solution design and commercial/vendor accountability. This role combines strong architectural credibility with people leadership, governance ownership, and stakeholder management across global clients.

Responsibilities

• Lead, grow and develop a multi-disciplinary engineering organization, providing mentorship to Development Leads and engineers, ensuring team composition is adequate, and hiring to fill gaps.


• Set and own the technical roadmap for the data platform, defining reference architectures and design patterns (e.g. medallion/layered architectures) that scale across multiple business units and data domains.


• Provide guidance, coaching and mentorship in modern data engineering practices, web application development, and best practices for diagnostics, debugging, testing, deploying, and troubleshooting.


• Work with Product and Engineering teams to scope, plan and estimate the technical roadmap, aligning it to broader business goals and helping to forecast delivery timescales.


• Evaluate solution options against business requirements and organizational standards; champion rapid prototyping and proof-of-concept work to validate designs and de-risk delivery.


• Provide architectural oversight and mentorship to architects and engineers; maintain high standards of design documentation and contribute to the evolution of architectural reference models.


• Foster constructive debates between Product, Engineering and UX teams to create scalable, client-focused solutions that solve business problems with software in the shortest sustainable lead-time.


• Establish and run governance frameworks for applications and data products, including certification and stewardship processes; ensure compliance with security, data privacy, and regulatory standards.


• Own platform security posture: access control, secrets management, naming/tagging conventions, and certification of new data products. Lead the triage and remediation of platform security or data incidents.


• Build visibility into cloud and compute cost drivers; drive FinOps practices to optimize spend across environments. Design repeatable onboarding processes for new tools, analysts, and integrations.


• Manage vendor relationships, procurement processes and commercial contract negotiations, ensuring legal and compliance requirements are met. Provide technical oversight of 3rd party supplier partnerships.


• Lead platform modernization and migration programs, including planning, sequencing, and risk management for large-scale technology transitions.


• Stay up to date with emerging technologies and industry trends, assessing their potential impact and benefit to the overall business strategy, particularly AI/agentic capabilities and data infrastructure innovations.

Candidate Profile

Proven experience leading data engineering or data platform teams at a senior/head level, ideally within a large or matrixed organization.

Industry experience working with Data platforms is essential, with strong background in dimensional data modelling, data pipeline development and data engineering in support of web applications.

Strong hands-on background in modern cloud data platforms (e.g. Databricks, Snowflake, or equivalent) and major cloud providers (Azure, AWS, or GCP).

Solid understanding of data governance, access control, and security practices in cloud environments.

Experience with large-scale ETL/ELT design and migration programs.

Demonstrated experience with cloud cost management and FinOps practices.

Experience managing vendor contracts, procurement, and commercial negotiations.

Strong stakeholder management skills with the ability to communicate effectively across technical and non-technical audiences and global/matrixed teams.

A structured, specification-driven approach to requirements and delivery, with a preference for disciplined, release-oriented delivery.

Able to demonstrate evidence of applying technology to solve business problems.

Requirements

• Strong working knowledge of modern cloud data platforms (Azure Databricks/Spark using Python and associated frameworks, or Snowflake equivalent).


• Strong working knowledge of cloud storage solutions (Azure Data Lake, Blob storage, or equivalent).


• Strong experience of building data reporting and visualisations using PowerBI, Tableau, or equivalent tools.


• Strong knowledge of SQL and data modelling principles.


• Experience in application development with proficiency in Python or JavaScript frameworks.


• Strong knowledge and experience of hosting in major cloud platforms (Azure, AWS, or GCP).


• Familiarity with how AI/ML and agentic systems are integrated with enterprise data platforms.


• Solid understanding of data governance, access con