We're seeking a Senior Director to lead and transform our data platform and cloud services architecture. This role is not about incremental improvements – we need someone who can lead and execute a leap forward in our data infrastructure capabilities, positioning Samba at the forefront of TV data analytics and AI-driven insights.
What you’ll do:
Define and execute a transformative vision for our data platform architecture that scales to billions of daily events
Partner with CTO and engineering leadership to align platform strategy with business objectives
Drive adoption of next-generation technologies including vector databases and ML-powered analytics
Build strategic roadmaps that balance innovation with operational excellence
Lead the evolution from current state to a modern, cloud-native data platform with embedded ML/AI capabilities
Work with the team to deliver fault-tolerant, multi-region architectures supporting real-time and batch processing
Build and maintain the services, platforms, and frameworks enabling Samba’s data engineering teams
Architect embedding-based systems for content understanding, viewer similarity, and semantic search
Deliver infrastructure for vector storage, indexing, and retrieval at scale (billions of embeddings)
Champion best practices in data governance, security, and compliance (GDPR, CCPA)
Evaluate and implement emerging technologies (streaming architectures, lakehouse patterns, ML platforms)
Design platforms for embedding generation, storage, and serving at scale
Implement vector search capabilities for real-time recommendations and content discovery
Build infrastructure supporting multimodal embeddings (video, audio, text metadata)
Enable self-service ML capabilities for data scientists and analysts
Establish MLOps practices for embedding model lifecycle management
Build and mentor a world-class team of platform engineers, ML engineers, and architects
Foster a culture of innovation, experimentation, and continuous learning
Establish clear career paths and growth opportunities for team members
Drive cross-functional collaboration with data science, product, and engineering teams
Establish SLAs and monitoring frameworks for internal and external clients
Provide observability tools for Data Engineering and Data Science, including tools to enforce data quality
Lead vendor relationships and technology partnerships
Drive automation and self-service capabilities for internal customers
Strategic Leadership
Technical Architecture
ML/AI Infrastructure
Team & Organizational Development
Operational Excellence
Who you are:
12+ years in data platform/infrastructure roles, with 5+ years in senior leadership
Proven track record of leading large-scale platform transformations
Experience building production embedding systems and vector databases
History of building and scaling teams of 20+ engineers
Deep expertise in modern data architectures (data mesh, lakehouse, streaming-first)
Proficiency with, Stream processing (Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming), Modern data warehouses/lakes (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery), Workflow management (Airflow, etc), Container orchestration (Kubernetes, EKS/GKE), Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, CloudFormation), ML platforms (MLflow, Kubeflow, SageMaker)
Exceptional communication skills to articulate complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
Strategic thinking with ability to balance long-term vision with short-term deliverables
Strong business acumen to connect technical decisions with business outcomes
Track record of influencing without authority across organizational boundaries
Knowledge of privacy-preserving analytics and clean room technologies
Contributions to open-source projects in ML infrastructure or vector search
Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or related field
Skills Required
- 12+ years of experience in data platform or infrastructure roles
- 5+ years of experience in senior leadership
- Proven track record leading large-scale platform transformations
- Experience building production embedding systems and vector databases
- Experience building and scaling teams of 20 or more engineers
- Deep expertise in modern data architectures, including data mesh, lakehouse, and streaming-first architectures
- Proficiency with Kafka, Flink, Spark Streaming, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Airflow, Kubernetes, EKS or GKE, Terraform, CloudFormation, MLflow, Kubeflow, and SageMaker
- Exceptional communication skills for explaining complex technical concepts to diverse audiences
- Strategic thinking and ability to balance long-term vision with short-term deliverables
- Strong business acumen connecting technical decisions with business outcomes
- Track record of influencing without authority across organizational boundaries
- Knowledge of privacy-preserving analytics and clean room technologies
- Contributions to open-source projects in ML infrastructure or vector search
- Advanced degree in Computer Science, Machine Learning, or a related field
What We Do
Television remains a vibrant cultural influence and an essential source of entertainment and information worldwide. Tremendous growth in content choices, and viewing platforms that allow us to watch anything, anytime, on any screen, has actually made it harder for viewers to discover and keep up with all the great programming available. It’s also more competitive for content providers to keep your attention, and for marketers to make strong, measurable connections with their target consumers. Technology that improves the viewing experience, enables content discovery, and addresses audience fragmentation across screens will strengthen television’s business model and relevance to consumers. Data is at the center of any solution to make TV better. Samba TV's technology is built into Smart TVs and easily maps to smart phones and tablets. By recognizing what's on screen, Samba TV learns what viewers like and using machine learning algorithms, enables discovery of shows and actors in a whole new way. Likewise, our data and measurement products are transforming the way stakeholders across the media landscape are thinking about their business. Given the dramatic growth in streaming services, connected devices, time-shifting, and multi-screen viewership, our data products solve real problems and create a meaningful competitive advantage for our clients.
