Director Data Engineering

(*) This is a remote position; however, the candidate must reside within 30 miles of one of the following locations: Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; San Francisco Bay Area, CA; Portland, ME.

About the Team/Role:

We are looking for a highly motivated, technically deep, and experienced engineering leader to join and manage a group of high-performing engineers in the Data technology org. This is a really exciting time to be in the data space at WEX. We are hiring for a cross-functional initiative with the goal of creating a modern, cloud-based technology ecosystem to allow WEX to be more nimble, faster to market, and open to emerging business opportunities, while keeping regulations, policy, and risk mitigation top of mind. This role is pivotal in shaping the future of data infrastructure and ensuring the scalability, reliability and performance of our data systems.

We are in the process of building a modern data platform with a focus on providing integrated, high-quality, rich, timely, and easy-to-use data to support company business and growth. AI enablement with data is one of our key imperatives. The vision for data org is to transform big data into big value for WEX and its customers through innovation, excellence and partnership.

With efficient and reliable data management, the data platform will allow WEX to more effectively grow our business and customer base in a much faster and safer way together with improved customer experience.

The Director of Data Engineering will report to the VP of Data Technology. An ideal candidate will have a rich experience in large scale platform/application development, data ingestion, processing and serving and various data architectures such as data warehouse, data lake, data lake house, data mesh etc, an established background in developing complex data pipelines, deep engineering skills and technical ability, outstanding people leadership with track record of growing/building strong and productive global teams, excellent project management skills, great communication skills, and a motivation to achieve results in a fast paced environment.

This individual will have a strong track record of helping to deliver effective, highly available, and scalable data assets in a hyper-growth environment where priorities shift quickly.

How you'll make an impact:

• Lead and drive the development of data engineering technology and platforms for the company's data needs, ensuring their reliability, performance, and flexibility.

• Own the technology and architecture of the data services.

• Challenge the status quo to drive better technical solutions that effectively serve all data-related needs.

• Partner closely with leaders in various business units to deeply understand their data needs and jointly develop technical solutions that serve these needs effectively.

• Demonstrate strong thought leadership and partnership to align technical solutions with business goals.

• Grow and build a strong global software and data engineering team, focusing on attracting and hiring top talent.

• Provide effective guidance and coaching on engineering principles and best practices to ensure team productivity, high quality, and timely delivery of initiatives.

• Ensure reliable data platform production execution, observability, and provide clear visibility to partners.

• Partner with other leaders in Data, AI, and various business units to leverage the data platform for their needs.

• Collaborate with solutions architecture, other engineering teams within data org and line of business (LOB) product and engineering teams to integrate the data assets with their products/systems, ensuring reliable execution.

• Create, prioritize, communicate, manage, and execute roadmaps, project plans, and commitments.

• Ensure the effectiveness of the development, quality, operations, and system performance. Create clear visibility to customers/partners and management.

• Set a high bar for technical excellence and provide guidance, training, and mentorship to engineering teams, focusing on engineering principles, skills, and best practices.

• Foster an environment of continuous learning and innovation.

• Set clear, measurable quality goals for the team in a data-driven manner.

• Partner with security and Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) teams to ensure continuous improvement and compliance with security requirements, service level objectives (SLOs), and error budgets.

Experience you'll bring

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field; A higher degree in a related field is a plus.

• Proven track record with at least 10+ years of experience in data engineering, dataOps for a large-scale data platform serving multiple business lines and products, including hands-on design and implementation experience

• 5+ years of experience in a leadership role, managing and scaling engineering teams.

• Extensive experience in designing solutions on High trust/PCI-compliant cloud data platform

• Deep knowledge and rich experience in data ingestions, including streaming technology and systems.

• Proficiency with data platform architecture, design, data dictionaries, multi-dimensional models, objects, star and snowflake schemas as well as structures for data lakes, data science, and data warehouses

• Extensive experience with big data technologies and cloud platforms (e.g., AWS, Azure, GCP).

• Strong expertise in designing and building scalable data pipelines, ETL processes, and analytics solutions using AWS services (e.g., S3, Glue, Lambda), ETL tools [ e.g., Qlik, Fivetran, Informatica IICS], and Snowflake.

• Experience in migrating data from existing warehouses (Oracle, SQL Server) to cloud data platform

• Strong problem-solving, analytical, and critical thinking skills.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to influence and collaborate with stakeholders at all levels.

• Experience in software development with programming languages like Python, Java, or Scala.

• Proven track record managing the entire Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) for complex projects.

• Strong understanding and practical experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing, and agile methodologies.

Leadership & Personal Characteristics

Beyond experience, the right leadership competencies and personal style are critical to success as the Director Data Engineering. The candidate will model WEX's commitment to innovation, integrity, execution, relationships, community, and the excellence that they commit to their customers. They will have a strong corporate stewardship philosophy and leadership style combined with the following:

• Demonstrates a collaborative, engaging, mission-driven style with good listening skills combined with gravitas and self-confidence to effectively interact with senior leadership and other key constituencies with humility, empathy, transparency, cultural sensitivity, and agility.

• Champions a culture of high standards, pushes for progress, embraces change, and challenges the status quo based on integrity, strong partnership, and financial responsibility. Possess uncompromising ethics and unwavering integrity.

• Able to operate in a fast-paced entrepreneurial environment with a hands-on approach.

• Leads with empathy. Recognizes others, listens intently, holds others accountable, and makes diversity and inclusion a priority. Promotes a culture of trust, transparency, fairness, innovation, collaboration, inclusion, and diversity of thought; empowers individuals.

• Communicates effectively in small and large group formats. Able to articulate a compelling vision and purpose that excites the team and drives outstanding performance and service delivery excellence.

• Talent magnet, talent developer, and talent scout that proactively engages external talent and builds and nurtures internal talent; empowers individuals and manages diverse teams to drive engagement and performance.

• Possesses a high level of intellectual curiosity and learning agility. A natural change agent with a combination of vision and execution skills.

• Understands nuance and how to drive change through influence across a complex business. Superb stakeholder management and comfortable operating in a fast-changing environment.