Executive Director, Cloud Data Platforms – Engineering

This is a fully remote position, open to applicants in Missouri.

📋 Description

• Build, lead, and nurture a high-performing, globally distributed platform engineering team, promoting a culture of technical excellence, accountability, and continuous improvement.

• Define and implement the enterprise cloud data platform strategy, aligning platform investments with business priorities, data/AI goals, and long-term technological roadmaps.

• Oversee the engineering and operations of the complete data platform ecosystem — encompassing cloud data warehouses/Lakehouses, data integration, transformation, orchestration, observability, and data quality services.

• Establish and uphold technology standards, reference architectures, and engineering guardrails that ensure platform consistency, scalability, security, and interoperability throughout the data ecosystem.

• Enhance platform adoption and enablement across analytics, data science, and business teams by providing self-service capabilities, reusable data products, and well-documented platform services.

• Collaborate with business, product, and technology leaders to convert data requirements into prioritized platform capabilities and investment cases with clear ROI.

• Integrate robust data governance, security, and regulatory compliance controls into platform design and operations, ensuring least-privileged access, data classification, lineage, and auditability.

• Take ownership of platform reliability, performance, and cost optimization (FinOps) — establishing SLOs/SLAs, monitoring frameworks, incident response protocols, and unit-cost accountability for cloud data services.

• Manage strategic vendor relationships, technology evaluations, and licensing negotiations to enhance the platform ecosystem and maintain a forward-looking technology roadmap.

• Define and monitor measurable outcomes (KPIs/OKRs) for platform value realization, adoption, delivery predictability, and operational excellence — reporting progress to executive leadership.

• Drive reliability, cost efficiency, and continuous improvement through metric-driven operations.

• Attract, develop, and retain top engineering talent with clear career paths and a strong team culture.

⛳️ Requirements

• Bachelor’s Degree in Arts/Sciences (BA/BS) in computer science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field - required.

• Master’s degree in Arts/Sciences (MA/MS) - preferred.

• 12+ years of progressive experience in data engineering, data platform engineering, or enterprise data infrastructure, with 5+ years in senior or executive leadership roles - required.

• Proven experience leading enterprise-scale cloud data platform initiatives, including modern data warehouses, Lakehouses, and cloud-native data ecosystems (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, or equivalent) - required.

• Experience implementing data governance, security, and regulatory compliance frameworks in cloud data environments, including access control, data classification, and lineage - required.

• Experience modernizing legacy data environments and overseeing large-scale platform migrations with minimal business disruption - preferred.

• Experience in the insurance, reinsurance, or regulated industry - preferred.

• Deep understanding of modern data engineering tools across the full platform lifecycle — including data integration, transformation (e.g., dbt, Informatica), pipeline orchestration (e.g., Airflow/Astronomer), and data observability (e.g., Monte Carlo) - required.

• Strong knowledge of cloud architectures (AWS, Azure, or GCP) and experience in designing secure, scalable, and cost-efficient data platform infrastructure - required.

• Demonstrated ability to build, scale, and lead platform engineering teams that support multiple business domains, global operations, or complex organizational structures - required.

• Proven track record of driving platform standardization, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), CI/CD for data pipelines, and operational automation to minimize manual effort and enhance reliability - required.

• Strong business acumen with experience in forming investment cases, managing platform budgets, and aligning technology investments to measurable business outcomes (FinOps) - required.

• Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills, with the capability to translate complex technical concepts for executive and non-technical audiences - required.

• Familiarity with data quality engineering, including automated testing, anomaly detection, and data contract frameworks at the dataset or metric level - preferred.

🏝️ Benefits

• RGA offers an annual bonus plan.

• Some positions may qualify for participation in our long-term equity incentive plan.

• RGA provides a comprehensive range of health, retirement, and other employee benefits.