
Director, Data & Analytics Engineering
Instructure
full-time
Posted on:
Location Type: Remote
Location: United States
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Salary
💰 $170,000 - $200,000 per year
Job Level
About the role
- Define and own the multi-year roadmap for the data platform, aligning investments in infrastructure, tooling, and headcount with business strategy.
- Lead and grow two high-performing teams—Data Engineering and Analytics Engineering—cultivating a collaborative, feedback-rich environment with clear career pathways.
- Architect and oversee scalable data pipelines across ingestion, transformation, orchestration, and delivery, for both batch and streaming use cases.
- Champion best practices in analytics engineering, including semantic layer design, dbt modelling standards, data contracts, and metrics governance.
- Partner with Data & Decision Science, Product, Finance, and Commercial teams to deliver high-quality, self-serve data solutions aligned to business needs.
- Ensure data platform reliability, observability, SLAs, and incident response, treating the platform as a product with real users.
- Drive vendor and tool evaluations for the modern data stack (cloud warehouse, orchestration, cataloging, transformation, reverse ETL, etc.).
- Set and enforce data quality, documentation, and governance standards to build trust across the business.
- Champion use of AI coding assistants and LLM-powered tooling (e.g. Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Claude) to accelerate delivery and reduce toil.
- Implement AI-native patterns—LLM-generated documentation, anomaly detection, data quality monitoring, and automated root-cause analysis.
- Prototype NL-to-SQL and AI-powered BI tools to empower self-serve analytics for non-technical users.
- Build foundational data infrastructure (feature stores, vector stores, model metadata, evaluation datasets) to enable AI and ML experimentation and scale.
Requirements
- 7+ years in data engineering or analytics engineering, with 3+ years in a senior leadership role managing multiple teams
- Deep expertise in the modern data stack—cloud data warehouses (Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks), dbt, orchestration tools (Airflow, Dagster, or Prefect), and ELT frameworks
- Proven ability to define and execute a multi-year data platform strategy
- Strong stakeholder management, including executive presentations and translating technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Experience building and scaling high-performing engineering teams: hiring, mentoring, performance management
- Track record of delivering trusted, well-documented, and widely adopted data products.
- Hands-on experience integrating AI/LLM tooling into engineering workflows or data products (it would be great if you also had)
- Familiarity with semantic layer tools (e.g. MetricFlow, Cube), data cataloging (e.g. Atlan, Datahub), and data observability platforms (it would be great if you also had)
- Experience with streaming data (Kafka, Flink, or Kinesis) and batch processing (it would be great if you also had)
- Knowledge of ML infrastructure: feature stores, model serving, vector databases (it would be great if you also had)
- Exposure to data mesh or data product organizational models (it would be great if you also had)
- Strong command of SQL and Python
Benefits
- Competitive compensation, plus all full-time employees participate in our ownership program - because everyone should have a stake in our success.
- Flexible work culture. Our remote, hybrid and in-office collaboration spaces vary by role, team and location.
- Generous time off, including local holidays and our annual “Dim the Lights” period in late December, when teams are encouraged to step back and recharge based on departmental needs.
- Comprehensive wellness programs and mental health support
- Annual learning and development stipends to support your growth
- The technology and tools you need to do your best work
- Motivosity employee recognition program
- A culture rooted in inclusivity, support, and meaningful connection
Applicant Tracking System Keywords
Tip: use these terms in your resume and cover letter to boost ATS matches.
Hard Skills & Tools
data engineeringanalytics engineeringcloud data warehousesdbtAirflowDagsterPrefectSQLPythonstreaming data
Soft Skills
stakeholder managementexecutive presentationsmentoringperformance managementcollaborationfeedback-rich environmenttranslating technical conceptsbuilding trustteam leadershipcommunication