Sovrn
Software and Data
Director,DataCollective
Neural analysis suggests this role is
optimal for Director candidates.
“Director, Data Collective at Sovrn. Skills: Data Platform Architecture, AI Engineering, Team Leadership. Lead hiring. Manage performance for engineers”
What You'll Achieve.
Take working solutions to intentional practice; Drive structural cost improvements; Invest in right balance of capability, health, debt
Industry & Context.
Technical decisions; Tradeoffs
In-office within 20 miles of Boulder, Hybrid outside 20 miles of Boulder
What They're Looking For.
Must Have
10+ years software/data engineering experience, 4+ years leading engineering teams, Hands-on big data experience, Hands-on distributed data processing experience, AWS ecosystem experience, Python experience, Spark experience, Kafka/Redpanda experience, Databricks or similar lakehouse platform experience, Experience operating data systems at scale, Working knowledge of cloud platform engineering practices, IaC experience, CI/CD experience, Observability experience, IAM experience, Cost management experience, Experience operating production vector databases at scale, Ability to communicate architectural concepts, Ability to communicate team strategy
Nice to Have
Familiarity with adtech data infrastructure, Familiarity with programmatic ecosystem, Experience with data security and compliance, PhD preferred
What You'll Do.
Manage performance for engineers
Set technical standards
Set cultural standards
Partner with leadership
Represent team's work to executives
Raise bar on engineering rigor
Raise bar on observability
Raise bar on operational excellence
Make tradeoffs on performance
Make tradeoffs on cost
Make tradeoffs on governance
Make tradeoffs on reliability
Drive structural cost improvements
Commitment management
Drive policy-as-code adoption
Drive governance frameworks adoption
Drive CI/CD for infrastructure
Invest in new capability
Invest in platform health
Provide domain expertise
Enable business growth through data
Partner with Product teams
Partner with Data Science teams
Partner with AI/ML teams
Partner with Platform teams
Partner with Security teams
Ship end-to-end solutions
Make data assets easier to use
Make data assets safer to use
Serve as senior counsel to data consumers
Serve as senior counsel to data stakeholders
Communicate architectural concepts
Communicate team strategy
Provide executive updates on cost
Provide executive updates on capacity
Provide executive updates on risk
How You'll Work.
Team & Collaboration
Cross-team partnership; Broader engineering leadership; Product teams; Data Science teams; AI/ML teams; Platform teams; Security teams; Internal teams; Leadership; External customers
Communication Scope
Executive updates; Architecture documents; Design reviews
Process & Methodology
Roadmap planning
Full Job Description
About Sovrn Every interesting company solves important problems for other people. Sovrn is a Software and Data business that helps Open Web businesses be and remain independent. We help them understand their business better, operate more efficiently, and make lead architecture and design across the platform; and remain close enough to the code, the systems, and the tradeoffs to make real technical decisions, not just approve them. You'll be working with a strong senior team, a modern stack, and an organization that already uses LLMs and agentic tooling across the data stack. We're looking for a leader who can take what's working from "in use" to "intentional practice." Someone with strong opinions about what high-leverage AI-native data engineering looks like at exchange scale, and the credibility to bring the rest of the org along. Languages / components / tools in our stack: Python, Redpanda/Kafka, Databricks/Spark, AWS/S3, Terraform, Datadog, GitHub What you'll be doing: Team Leadership lead hiring and performance management for engineers ranging from mid-level to Principal Set the technical and cultural standards for the team: what "great" looks like in design, code review, on-call, and cross-team partnership Mentor and grow engineers across levels through hands-on design collaboration, technical coaching, and clear career frameworks Partner with the broader engineering leadership team on org-wide planning, budgeting, and roadmap tradeoffs; represent the team's work and constraints to executives Data Platform Architecture raise the bar on engineering rigor, observability, and operational excellence Stay close enough to the systems to make real tradeoffs on performance, cost, governance, and reliability, and to know when the team's estimates and risk assessments are right AI drive structural cost improvements through architecture, and disciplined commitment management Drive Infrastructure as Code (IaC) adoption, policy-as-code, governance frameworks (RBAC/ABAC, I
Applying for this Director, Data Collective role?
Most applicants get filtered before a human reads their resume. See if yours makes the cut.
How to Apply on Greenhouse
- Create a Greenhouse profile before applying — it saves time across multiple applications.
- Upload your resume as a PDF; the parser handles it better than Word.
- Answer all knockout questions carefully — wrong answers auto-reject before a human sees you.
- Enable email notifications to track application status in real time.
ANONYMOUS · UNFILTERED
What do employees actually say about Sovrn?
Real rants from real employees. Read before you apply.