Director, Data Engineering - Platform Data Solutions

The Walt Disney Company•Orlando, FL

About The Position

The Director, Platform Data Solutions, is responsible for leading the Platform Data Solutions organization within the Data Products & Platforms portfolio. This role operates the front door of Helix—ensuring source data arrives reliably, remains secure, and is consistently available for downstream teams and business use. This leadership position sits within the DX Data organization and reports into the Vice President, Data.

Requirements

12+ years of related experience in data engineering, data platforms, or large-scale data operations.
Advanced knowledge of data architecture, data warehousing, and modern ELT/ETL pipeline design.
Expertise with modern data platforms such as Snowflake and/or BigQuery.
Experience with lakehouse architecture and data formats including Parquet and Iceberg.
Experience designing and operating automated, highly available data pipelines at scale.
Hands-on experience with data transformation and orchestration tools such as dbt and Airflow.
Strong understanding of data quality, observability, and monitoring practices and tooling.
Familiarity with data security, privacy, and compliance requirements in enterprise environments.
Proven ability to lead and develop diverse, highly technical teams in a matrix organization.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills with the ability to influence and partner at all levels.
Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

Nice To Haves

Advanced degree in the above fields preferred.

Responsibilities

Own data platforms, pipelines, and architecture supporting data onboarding, foundational medallion data layers (Landing, Bronze, Silver), and pipeline operations across Disney Experiences, ensuring scalable, reliable, and secure data delivery.
Lead multiple teams of data engineers responsible for building, operating, and evolving enterprise-scale data ingestion frameworks and pipelines.
Own the end-to-end front door of Helix, including source system onboarding, ingestion frameworks, data validation, and source-oriented data standardization.
Accountable for the design, build, operation, reliability, and security of Raw (Bronze) and Cleansed Source (Silver) data layers, managing structured and unstructured data at scale while ensuring auditability, traceability, data quality, and performance.
Lead pipeline operations and platform reliability, including monitoring, incident response, L2 support, root cause analysis, and proactive remediation to meet availability and SLA expectations.
Own and manage upstream relationships with technical source system owners, including data contracts, schema evolution, onboarding requirements, and delivery timelines, coordinating upstream changes with minimal impact to the data ecosystem.
Manage and govern managed services partners providing L1/L2 support and day-to-day data operations, ensuring consistent service delivery and clear engineering accountability.
Oversee legacy data pipelines while driving migration to modern data platform architectures, ensuring continuity for business-critical workloads.
Partner closely with Platform Engineering & Operations, Business Data Solutions, and Platform Strategy & Governance in a highly matrixed environment to deliver platform outcomes.
Provide thought leadership on data engineering best practices, platform architecture, and operational excellence to drive business value, efficiency, and innovation.
Communicate effectively with senior leaders and stakeholders through clear storytelling, executive updates, and outcome-focused reporting.