Director, Data Platform & Engineering

Overview

The Role and Team

The Head of Data Platform & Engineering owns our internal enterprise data strategy and platform, turning raw operational data into governed, trusted data products that power decision-making for our executive leadership team (ELT), FP&A, GTM Analytics and other business functions within Medallia. This is a hands-on leadership role for someone with demonstrated experience in defining a data strategy, executing on the platform architecture and data modeling, and building and coaching a small team of data engineers and analysts. This role will also lead the effort to extend self-service analytics beyond a small group of expert Tableau users to a broader, distributed set of business analysts by leveraging the newer breed of analytics solutions and AI.

This role sits at the center of how we operate as one integrated, high-performing company: the data platform is the connective tissue that gives leadership a single source of truth on the health of the business, and gives go-to-market teams (Marketing, Sales, Service, and Support) the insight they need to protect and grow our customer base.

Responsibilities

• Own and evolve the enterprise data strategy and technical architecture for the enterprise data platform, continuing our shift to a Medallion (bronze/silver/gold) architecture.
• Build a deep working knowledge of the company's GTM strategy, product telemetry, and financial reporting needs; act as a trusted advisor to business functions, translating their priorities into well-governed data products and a prioritized roadmap.
• Partner with business function leaders and their distributed analytics teams to gather requirements, prioritize the backlog, and run an agile delivery model with a clear bias to action.
• Provide hands-on leadership and coaching to a small team of data engineers and analysts, reviewing data models and pipelines and unblocking technical decisions.
• Define and maintain data governance standards - quality, access, lineage, and shared definitions - in partnership with data owners across the business.
• Lead the evaluation and rollout of tools that extend self-service analytics and AI enablement to non-technical business users, reducing reliance on multiple Excel workbooks and avoiding the learning curve of more complex BI solutions.
• Partner cross-functionally on data initiatives that support revenue growth: pipeline generation, prospecting, expansion and renewal (ATR) opportunities, rep productivity, and product telemetry - bringing greater predictability and insight to the business.
• Lead the selection, implementation, and management of the core data platform technology stack; partner with business functions on selection and management of the analytics and visualization tools that leverage the data platform.
• Identify opportunities to apply AI to the data platform itself and to internal reporting and analytics workflows, in line with the company's broader AI-enablement priorities.

Candidates based in the Tysons vicinity will be prioritized as this role is Hybrid, 3 days per week onsite.

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications

• 10+ years in data engineering and/or data platform management, including 5+ years leading a data platform, data engineering, and/or analytics team.
• Hands-on experience and proficiency in SQL and dbt (or a comparable transformation and orchestration solution) to transform raw source data into analysis-ready, governed tables and views.
• Demonstrated experience architecting and operating cloud data platforms (e.g., Snowflake or a comparable cloud data warehouse) at enterprise scale, leveraging pipeline orchestration (e.g., Dagster, Airflow, or similar) and EL / ETL tooling (e.g., Fivetran or similar).
• Experience designing and executing a data platform strategy end to end - from technical architecture, through data governance, to business adoption.
• Track record of translating ambiguous business requirements into clear data models, metrics, and reporting.
• Experience running an agile delivery model with a bias to action and a track record of shipping incremental business value.
• Strong communication, prioritization, and stakeholder management skills; comfortable operating as a trusted advisor to executive and business-function leaders, not just a service provider, in a dynamic environment.
• Proven people leadership: hiring, coaching, and developing a small, senior technical team.

Preferred Qualifications

• Direct experience with a Medallion (bronze/silver/gold) or similar layered data architecture.
• Experience with Tableau and with newer spreadsheet-native, self-service BI tools (e.g., Sigma, Omni) - particularly in extending BI to non-technical business analysts.
• Familiarity with native AI/ML capabilities within a cloud data platform (e.g., Snowflake Cortex) and a passion for leveraging AI to accelerate data engineering and analytics work.
• Experience in a B2B software/SaaS company, ideally supporting FP&A, GTM (marketing, sales, service/support), and executive data and reporting use cases.
• Ability to distill signal from noise in large, messy data sets and crisply communicate the "so what" to non-technical executive audiences.

Medallia is committed to equal pay and transparency. The annual base salary range for this position is $155,500 - $270,000. This position is bonus eligible. Please note that the salary range information provided is a general guideline and combines all of the distinct labor markets within the US. It is uncommon for an individual to be hired at or near the top of the range for their role and compensation decisions are dependent on a variety of factors. Medallia considers factors such as (but not limited to) scope and responsibilities of the position, candidate's work experience, candidate's work location, education/training, key skills, internal peer equity, external market data, as well as, market and business considerations when making compensation decisions.

Medallia also offers competitive health and wellness benefits, including but not limited to medical, dental, vision, 401(k), short-term and long-term disability, life and AD&D insurance, statutory leaves, paid parental leave, and paid holidays. Benefits and eligibility may vary by location and role.