Director, Data Engineering (US)

About the role

We are seeking a Technical Director to own the vision, architecture, and delivery of our data platform and the engineering organization behind it. This leader will set the technical direction for how Code and Theory collects, models, and activates data, powering analytics, predictive models, and generative AI across the agency and its clients. The ideal candidate is a product-minded technologist and a credible hands-on architect who can translate business strategy into data and platform development, and who builds teams as deliberately as they build systems.

As Technical Director, you will have broad authority over technical strategy, standards, and staffing. You will partner with agency leadership, client stakeholders, and the Machine Learning team, have input into budget and roadmap decisions, and define the culture and craft of a world-class data organization.

What You'll Do

• Own the vision, architecture, and roadmap for Code and Theory's data platform, setting technical strategy that ties directly to measurable business outcomes
• Design and scale the systems that collect, model, and activate data, turning latent data lakes into data-driven product backends that power analytics, predictive models, and generative AI
• Partner with agency leadership, client stakeholders, and the Machine Learning team to translate business strategy into platform and data development
• Contribute to budget and roadmap decisions, prioritizing and funding competing initiatives
• Select and standardize cloud data platforms and tooling, applying strong, well-reasoned technical judgment
• Stay hands-on as a credible architect, setting standards and best practices for engineering quality across Python, SQL, and modern data workflows
• Lead adoption of AI-powered coding, agentic engineering, and AI-enabled workflows across the engineering organization
• Hire, mentor, and grow engineers and leads, and shape the culture and craft of a world-class data organization
• Represent the data organization to senior leadership and clients, communicating clearly with audiences across a 50/50 Tech/Creative organization
• Balance client-facing delivery with internal platform investment, and oversee data governance, privacy, and security practices

What You'll Need

• 10+ years in data engineering or adjacent disciplines, including 3+ years leading teams or technical organizations, with a record of designing and scaling data platforms from the ground up
• Demonstrated ability to set technical strategy and tie it to measurable business outcomes, including prioritizing and funding competing initiatives
• Substantial work experience in activating latent company data lakes into data-driven product backends
• Deep expertise in cloud data platforms and the judgment to choose among them. Bring your opinions on which you love and which you hate!
• Strong technical fluency in Python and SQL
• Substantial experience with AI-powered coding, agentic engineering, and AI-enabled workflows, ideally having led their adoption across a team
• Proven track record of hiring, mentoring, and growing engineers and leads, and of establishing standards and best practices
• Exceptional communication and influence, with the ability to work across the full range of technical levels at an organization that is 50/50 Tech/Creative, and to represent the data organization to senior leadership and clients

Nice to Have

• Experience owning data governance, privacy compliance, and security programs
• Working knowledge of marketing data ecosystems (GA4, advertising platforms, CRMs, CDPs)
• Experience integrating AI/ML capabilities into data pipelines and shipping GenAI applications to production
• Experience in an agency or consultancy environment, balancing client-facing delivery with internal platform investment