Director, Engineering - Military veterans preferred

Position Title: Director, Engineering

Requisition ID: R100450

Location: Dallas, TX | Remote Texas

Full/Part-Time: Full time

About Us:

Learfield is the leading media and technology company powering college athletics. Through its digital and physical platforms, Learfield owns and leverages a deep data set and relationships in the industry to drive revenue, growth, brand awareness, and fan engagement for brands, sports, and entertainment properties. With ties to over 1,200 collegiate institutions and over 12,000 local and national brand partners, Learfield’s presence in college sports and live events delivers influence and maximizes reach to target audiences. With data-based solutions for a 365-day, 24/7 fan experience, Learfield enables schools and brands to connect with fans through licensed merchandise, game ticketing, donor identification for athletic programs, exclusive custom content, innovative marketing initiatives, NIL solutions, and advanced digital platforms. Since 2008, it has served as title sponsor for the acclaimed Learfield Directors’ Cup, supporting athletic departments across all divisions.

Our people-first culture is the foundation of our business and is reflective of our approach to building meaningful relationships with our employees, partners, and fans. The company strives each day to deliver the mission statement and embody the core values that make Learfield an exciting place to work.

Our Mission

Powering the connection of fans to the brands and experiences they love.

Our Core Values

Build Trust | Be Fans of One Another | Power Tomorrow | Create & Connect Communities | Have Fun

The Data Strategy and Analytics team is seeking a Director of Data Engineering to lead the technical team that powers Fanbase, Learfield’s proprietary enterprise data platform.
As the Director, Data Engineering, you will spearhead the execution of designing and developing all related data infrastructure and technologies for Fanbase. You will serve as senior leadership on the data strategy and analytics team providing technical recommendations, spearheading innovation, and managing product enhancements across the engineering team. You will lead a team of engineers and business intelligence analysts working closely with the product & analytics teams to advance the strategic vision of the Fanbase platform.
We are looking for a candidate with in-depth experience of designing and implementing complex data systems and architecture, with a solid understanding of emerging technologies and trends. The ideal candidate would have direct experience with Azure big data implementation, though other platforms will be considered. The candidate we’re looking for has hands-on coding experience and can lead a team of engineers around their vision for architecture and infrastructure. Any experience of other technology areas such Event Hubs, stream analytics, AI modelling and Tableau would be advantageous as well as any experience in any other cloud technology providers such as AWS and/or Snowflake.
As Director, Data Engineering, you will report to the SVP, Data Strategy and Analytics. Additionally, you will work closely with the senior members of the team and across the organization.

The Person:

• A passion for technology with a flair for finding innovative solutions.
• A talent for design with a keen eye for detail, structured thinking, and best practice.
• Collaborative mindset, finding solutions to blockers & working cross-functionally.
• Driven, motivated and inspiring with the ability to mentor & nurture.
• Both architectural and hands on, with the ability to specify and build.
• Servant leader and educator listener.

Responsibilities & Qualifications

• At least 10+ years of experience of being the technical lead of a development team or progressive growth
• Oversee all technical infrastructure related to Azure technologies, data visualization and data strategy
• Data architecture, design, development, and implementation, using Azure technologies for large scale data solutions.
• Detailed understanding of data modeling within a cloud computing environment
• Lakehouse architecture design and implementation are a must.
• Technical authoring & solution design for data warehousing
• Knowledge & oversight of security best practices and industry standards and how to apply them within an Azure environment.
• Hands-on experience in building Azure infrastructure using arm templates
• In-depth experience of cloud release management, process automation, source control ideally utilizing Azure DevOps. CI/CD automation tools/procedures also a plus
• Extensive experience in developing the following technologies:
  • Azure Storage Accounts/Data Lake Gen2
  • Azure Data Factory, Mapping Data Flows
  • Azure SQL Server/Azure Synapse Analytics
  • Azure Logic & Function apps
• Provide leadership and strategy/vision in growing big data/data warehousing environment.
• Build and lead teams of data engineers and data visualization specialists into the responsibilities listed within.
• Scope tickets and provide detailed guidance to engineering team to ensure work is meeting project deadlines, quality standards and product requirements.
• Allocate and manage team time and resources effectively to optimize progress toward goals and projects.
• Define, implement, measure, and regularly report KPIs around the health of Fanbase data platform and performance of the team.
• Emphasis on quality of data and work outputs to shorten required QA & testing time and share responsibility for accurate, scalable, and dependable deliverables.
• Collaborate closely with product managers to align on scope of projects, including specifying engineering requirements, timelines, and discussion around open questions.
• Proactive in problem solving and issuing solutions when necessary.
• Ability to derive solutions when requirements are missing or obscure.
• Work with other technical parties within the larger corporate ecosystem to provide oversight and best practice guidance.

Nice to Haves

• Experience in consumer, transactions, digital marketing & advertising, and/or CRM data concepts
• Tableau Server and Desktop knowledge; Power BI development and maintenance
• Experience or knowledge of other Data technologies – such as Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, Databricks or other cloud-based data service.
• A viewpoint on AI and the ways it could revolutionize productivity, innovation & efficiency
• Experience in Software development using any of the following - php, java, .net. c#
• Experience in frontend technologies such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, Angular, React

Pay Transparency

The approximate base pay range for this position is $145,500.00 to $225,500.00. Please note that the pay range provided is a good faith estimate for the position at the time of posting. Individuals may also be eligible for an annual discretionary bonus and/or sales compensation. Actual compensation may vary based on factors including but not limited to job-related knowledge, skills, and experience as well as geographic location.

Learfield offers a full spectrum of benefits for eligible employees including Medical, Dental, Vision, Health Savings Account, Life Insurance and Other Insurance Plans, Flexible Paid Time Off (including Parental Leave), Paid Holidays, 401(k), and Short/Long Term Disability.

Learfield is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We provide equal employment opportunities to applicants and employees without regard to race; color; sex; gender identity; sexual orientation; religious practices and observances; national origin; pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions; status as a protected veteran or spouse/family member of a protected veteran; or disability.

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