Director of Data

 

What You’ll Do

Sol de Janeiro is seeking a Director of Data to build and lead our enterprise data practice. This is a leadership role responsible for establishing the foundational data infrastructure that will power analytics, reporting, and data-driven decision making across the organization.

You will own the full data stack: data engineering and pipelines, the Databricks data lake, business intelligence through DOMO, data analysis capabilities, and data governance. Your primary mission is to build a proper medallion architecture with well-defined Gold tables that serve as the single source of truth for the business, eliminating scattered ETL logic and enabling true self-service analytics.

This role is ideal for a strategic data leader who can envision the end state, build the roadmap to get there, and lead a team through foundational infrastructure work that will take approximately a year to fully realize.

What You'll Do

 

Build the Foundation

• Architect and oversee implementation of a medallion architecture (Bronze/Silver/Gold) in Databricks
• Define and build Gold tables that serve as the canonical, business-ready data layer
• Eliminate ETL logic from DOMO, moving all transformation upstream into proper data pipelines (final-mile formatting excepted)
• Establish data modeling standards, naming conventions, and documentation practices that enable self-service consumption

Team Leadership & Development

• Lead a team of 4 data professionals including data engineers and analysts, with potential for growth
• Establish clear roles, career paths, and performance expectations
• Build a team culture centered on data quality, documentation, and serving business stakeholders
• Partner with HR on hiring decisions and team composition as the function scales

Operational Excellence

• Own the reliability and performance of all data pipelines and the Databricks platform
• Establish SLAs with business partners for data freshness, quality, and availability
• Create and track success metrics including pipeline reliability, Gold table coverage, data quality scores, and stakeholder satisfaction
• Implement data quality monitoring and alerting to catch issues before they impact downstream consumers

Business Partnership

• Partner with Finance, Marketing, Supply Chain, and Operations to understand their data needs
• Translate business requirements into data models and pipeline specifications
• Enable self-service analytics by building intuitive, well-documented data products
• Serve as the data authority for the organization, establishing trust in a single source of truth

Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Partner closely with the Director of Integrations to ensure seamless data flows from source systems into the data lake
• Coordinate with integration team on data delivery requirements and SLAs
• Support SAP S/4HANA migration by ensuring data architecture is ready for new source system patterns
• Collaborate with Security on data access controls, privacy requirements, and compliance

Strategic Planning

• Develop the multi-year data strategy and roadmap aligned with business priorities
• Build business cases for platform investments and team growth
• Stay current on data platform evolution and evaluate opportunities for capability enhancement
• Support international expansion with data architecture that accommodates regulatory requirements

Must Haves

• 8+ years of experience in data engineering, analytics, or data platform roles, with at least 3 years in a management or leadership capacity
• Proven experience building foundational data infrastructure—you've taken an organization from fragmented data to a cohesive, trusted data platform
• Strong understanding of modern data architecture patterns including medallion architecture, data lakehouse concepts, and dimensional modeling
• Track record of partnering with business stakeholders to deliver data products that drive decisions
• Experience establishing data governance practices, quality standards, and documentation culture
• Strong executive communication skills with ability to articulate data strategy to non-technical audiences

Technical Foundation

• Deep familiarity with modern data platforms (Databricks strongly preferred; Snowflake, BigQuery, or similar acceptable)
• Understanding of data pipeline orchestration and ETL/ELT patterns
• Knowledge of SQL and data modeling best practices (star schema, slowly changing dimensions, etc.)
• Familiarity with BI platforms and their proper role in the data stack (consumption and visualization, not transformation)
• Understanding of data quality frameworks and monitoring approaches

Leadership Qualities

• You think in systems and can architect a coherent data ecosystem from disparate pieces
• You are patient with foundational work, understanding that building the right infrastructure pays dividends for years
• You can prioritize ruthlessly, knowing which Gold tables to build first based on business impact
• You translate between technical and business languages fluently
• You build trust by delivering reliable, well-documented data products

Nice to Have

• Experience with DOMO or similar BI platforms
• Background in consumer packaged goods, retail, or e-commerce data
• Experience supporting ERP migrations from a data perspective
• Exposure to data governance tools and data cataloging
• Experience with PySpark or other distributed computing frameworks

Success in This Role

First 90 Days:

• Complete onboarding with deep understanding of current data landscape, pain points, and stakeholder needs
• Audit existing pipelines, data models, and DOMO implementations to assess current state
• Build relationships with key business stakeholders and understand their highest-priority data needs
• Document the target architecture and create a prioritized roadmap for Gold table development

First Year:

• Deliver a meaningful set of Gold tables covering highest-priority business domains
• Migrate ETL logic out of DOMO for covered domains, establishing the pattern for remaining areas
• Achieve measurable improvement in data trust and self-service adoption
• Establish data quality monitoring and SLAs with business partners
• Build the team capabilities needed to sustain and expand the data platform

Why Sol de Janeiro

• Build from the ground up: This is your opportunity to architect the data foundation for a high-growth company—not inherit someone else's decisions, but make the right ones from the start
• Real leadership scope: Direct accountability for the entire data function with significant autonomy to shape strategy and execution
• Business impact: Your work will directly enable better decisions across Marketing, Finance, Supply Chain, and Operations
• Growth trajectory: Sol de Janeiro's continued expansion means increasing data complexity and opportunity
• Collaborative environment: Work alongside a strong integration team and business partners who are eager for better data capabilities