Director of Engineering - Data Platform

Flexera saves customers billions of dollars in wasted technology spend. A pioneer in Hybrid ITAM and FinOps, Flexera provides award-winning, data-oriented SaaS solutions for technology value optimization (TVO), enabling IT, finance, procurement and cloud teams to gain deep insights into cost optimization, compliance and risks for each business service. Flexera One solutions are built on a set of definitive customer, supplier and industry data, powered by our Technology Intelligence Platform, that enables organizations to visualize their Enterprise Technology Blueprint™ in hybrid environments—from on-premises to SaaS to containers to cloud.

We’re transforming the software industry.  We’re Flexera.  With more than 50,000 customers across the world, we’re achieving that goal. But we know we can’t do any of that without our team.  Ready to help us re-imagine the industry during a time of substantial growth and ambitious plans?  Come and see why we’re consistently recognized by Gartner, Forrester and IDC as a category leader in the marketplace. Learn more at flexera.com

At Flexera, we're on a mission to empower global enterprises by transforming IT insights into decisive actions. We are seeking a Director of Engineering with deep expertise in building and operating large-scale data platforms — with a strong emphasis on Databricks lakehouse architectures. This is a key leadership role responsible for setting the strategy, driving innovation, and scaling a world-class data platform that powers analytics, AI/ML, and product development across Flexera.

As a senior engineering leader, you will define and execute the data platform roadmap, partnering closely with architects, product management, data science, and infrastructure teams. You will guide and empower engineering teams to seamlessly integrate and deliver scalable, performant, and secure data capabilities on top of our Databricks lakehouse foundation. The ideal candidate combines technical depth in modern big data technologies with exceptional leadership, cross-functional collaboration, and operational excellence.

What you'll do:

• Define and execute the data platform strategy and roadmap aligned with Flexera’s business and product objectives.
• Partner with architects and Principal Engineers to establish technical vision, architecture guardrails, and best practices for Databricks lakehouse implementations.
• Lead and grow a team of engineers, fostering a culture of innovation, high performance, and continuous learning.
• Drive platform scalability, reliability, governance, and cost efficiency, enabling analytics, AI/ML, and product innovation at scale.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Analytics, Data Science, and Infrastructure to align priorities, define requirements, and ensure timely delivery of data capabilities.
• Oversee the adoption and optimization of key technologies, including Databricks (Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, Photon, MLflow), orchestration frameworks, and streaming data patterns.
• Champion data governance, security, and compliance by driving alignment with InfoSec, architecture, and legal stakeholders.
• Manage budgets, cloud costs, vendor relationships, and resourcing to support platform growth and evolution.
• Mentor and develop engineers and technical leaders, building deep expertise in Databricks internals, Spark optimization, and modern data architectures.
• Define technical artifacts, including architecture diagrams, roadmaps, and best practice guides, to ensure clarity and alignment across teams.
• Promote a high-standard engineering culture and operational excellence within the organization.

You'll be expected to have:

• Bachelor’s or higher degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or a related field.
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with 8+ years building and operating large-scale data platforms.
• 5+ years in engineering leadership roles, including managing teams and leading cross-functional initiatives.
• Expert-level proficiency with Databricks, including:
   • Delta Lake internals (ACID transactions, time travel, data compaction strategies)
   • Unity Catalog for data governance, security, and lineage
   • Advanced Spark optimization and cluster management
• Strong expertise with cloud-native data engineering in Azure or AWS, including storage (ADLS/S3), networking, and IAM integration.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, big data technologies, metadata catalogs, orchestration frameworks, and observability tooling.
• Proven experience driving data governance, data modeling, and ontology initiatives to support analytics and AI/ML workflows.
• Experience with streaming architectures (Apache Kafka, structured streaming), schema evolution, and event-driven data modeling.
• Strong communication skills and emotional intelligence to collaborate effectively with diverse teams and stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor senior engineers, scale teams, and manage budgets and vendor relationships.
• A continuous learner mindset — actively keeping pace with evolving Databricks platform capabilities and broader data engineering trends.

Preferred but not required:

• Experience with Power BI Direct Lake mode and semantic modeling for lakehouse-based analytics.
• Familiarity with Mosaic AI, Databricks GenAI capabilities, or Feature Store implementations.
• Contributions to open-source Spark, Databricks community content, or certifications (e.g., Databricks Certified Data Engineer Professional).

At Flexera, we foster a fun and engaged hybrid working environment where collaboration and innovation thrive. We value diversity and encourage applicants from underrepresented groups in technology to apply. Join our team to not only contribute to a world-class global product but also to grow in your career. At Flexera, we encourage continuous learning and provide opportunities for professional development.