Director, Platform Development
About The Position
Versant Media’s Data Platforms team is the central data store across the enterprise. We unify disparate systems into a secure, well-governed, real-time data environment that powers downstream products, analytics, and content delivery experiences. We are seeking a Director, Platform Development to lead the design, buildout, and evolution of our modern data platform. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone who is equally comfortable writing production code, setting architectural direction, and managing a small but growing team. In the near term, this role will be a key individual contributor responsible for building foundational platform capabilities. Over time, the focus will shift toward people leadership, planning, and execution management as the team scales. This role reports to the VP of Data Platforms and is expected to act as a technical and operational anchor for the organization.
Requirements
- Deep foundation in software engineering fundamentals, including: Object-oriented programming Design patterns API and service design
- Solid understanding of data engineering concepts, including: Lakehouse architectures ELT pipelines Data governance, metadata, and lineage
- Experience building modular or microservice-based systems
- Demonstrated experience leading or mentoring engineers (formal people management experience preferred, but not required)
- Strong commitment to code quality, testing, and automation
- Hands-on experience with CI/CD pipelines and modern DevOps practices
- Comfortable operating with a high degree of ownership in a lean, fast-moving environment
- Strong communicator who can translate between technical and non-technical stakeholders
Nice To Haves
- Experience with ML platforms or services (e.g., Databricks, AWS Bedrock)
- Familiarity with analytics and BI tools (Tableau, Power BI, or similar)
- Experience working in media, streaming, or large-scale enterprise environments
- Prior experience modernizing or integrating legacy systems into cloud-native platforms
Responsibilities
- Lead the design and implementation of core backend services and data platform components using Node.js and TypeScript
- Establish and evolve platform architecture, design patterns, and engineering standards
- Own and triage intake requests, balancing short-term delivery with long-term platform health
- Partner closely with governance, analytics, and downstream consumers to ensure the platform supports: Scalable data ingestion and access patterns Lakehouse-style architectures ELT pipelines Metadata, lineage, and governance requirements
- Build and maintain CI/CD pipelines that enable safe, repeatable, and observable deployments
- Set expectations and best practices around: Object-oriented design and proven design patterns Test-driven development (TDD) and strong automated test coverage Secure development lifecycle (SDL) principles
- Hire, mentor, and manage engineers as the team grows
- Conduct code and design reviews, providing clear technical guidance
- Collaborate effectively in a matrixed enterprise environment with both legacy systems and modern platforms
- Gradually transition from primary IC to people and execution leadership as the platform matures
Benefits
- This position is eligible for company sponsored benefits, including medical, dental and vision insurance, 401(k), paid leave, tuition reimbursement, and a variety of other discounts and perks.
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What This Job Offers
Job Type
Full-time
Career Level
Director
Education Level
No Education Listed
