Director, Data Platform

Credit Acceptance Corporation•San Francisco, CA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

Credit Acceptance is seeking a Director, Data Platform to lead the long-term vision, strategy, architecture, and development of enterprise data platforms. The role supports business growth and AI success through scalable, self-service data capabilities across big data, real-time, transaction and operational data, and governance. The Director is responsible for production success, platform economics and FinOps discipline, and communicating technology strategy, roadmaps, and progress to executive leadership and stakeholders. The Director will provide technical leadership across the data organization and broader engineering teams, contribute to critical system design and operations, establish architecture and engineering decision frameworks, and help build a strong engineering organization through hiring, mentoring, and continuous learning. The position also involves developing business-domain expertise, assessing third-party technologies, documenting standards and best practices, resolving critical production issues, and aligning technology decisions with business outcomes. This position follows a hybrid work model: two work-from-home days and three in-office days each week. Candidates must reside in or be willing to relocate to the greater Southfield, Michigan area; the greater Bellevue, Washington area; or the San Francisco Bay Area, California. The offered base salary range is $250,513–$350,718, with eligibility for an annual cash and equity variable incentive of 20–60%, based on individual performance and other factors.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, or a closely related field, or equivalent work experience. Required degrees must be from institutions accredited by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation or equivalent.
At least 10 years of software engineering experience or comparable depth of experience.
Experience in a leadership role overseeing technical direction for data platforms, technology, and architecture.
Expert knowledge of software engineering best practices and experience building modern data platforms, products, and solutions, particularly to enable AI success.
Expert understanding and end-to-end use of modern data technologies, including source systems, integration, acquisition, ingestion, transformation, aggregation, governance, business intelligence, data warehouses and lakes, NoSQL, object storage, and streaming.
Extensive experience building and driving adoption of software engineering best practices.
Strong understanding of AI, distributed systems, cloud computing, and microservices architectures.
Demonstrated success building a strong engineering organization and attracting, recruiting, developing, and retaining talent.
Demonstrated success building mission-critical, enterprise-class data platforms that deliver business impact.
Demonstrated ability to work with business partners and cross-functional teams, and to coach and mentor experienced team members.
In-depth experience building big-data, real-time production systems that deliver business success.
Experience communicating technology in a business context and providing timely, clear communication.
Familiarity with delivery mechanisms such as Agile.
Must reside in or be willing to relocate to the greater Southfield, Michigan area; greater Bellevue, Washington area; or San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Ability to communicate complex technical information verbally and in writing to all levels, including senior leadership.
Ability to work independently and collaboratively in a fast-paced, dynamic environment.
Must meet company expectations for compliance, attendance, accountability, collaboration, communication, and effective planning and prioritization.

Nice To Haves

Financial services or FinTech industry experience.

Responsibilities

Develop and drive the long-term vision for enterprise data platforms and architecture, aligned with business growth and AI success.
Formulate and implement data platform strategy across big data, real-time, transaction and operational data, and governance.
Oversee architecture, design, and development of scalable data platforms that enable self-service use cases across the company, using a platform- and AI-first approach.
Ensure production success and establish FinOps practices, including timely and informative forecasting, runtime optimization, and business showback.
Communicate data technologies, strategies, roadmaps, and progress to executive leadership and stakeholders.
Monitor industry trends and emerging technologies, turning them into initiatives that drive innovation.
Build a strong engineering organization and foster engineering discipline through leadership and mentoring.
Collaborate with data and cross-engineering teams on technology and architecture strategy and decisions.
Contribute technical innovation and participate in critical system design, implementation, and operational success.
Develop technology and architecture decision frameworks that embed engineering discipline.
Build expertise in business processes to align technology with business outcomes.
Work with engineering leadership to develop and execute company technical and business strategy.
Conduct impact analysis to identify the effects of changes across applications and systems.
Perform technical due diligence and architectural assessments of third-party technologies and solutions.
Experiment with ideas, validate assumptions against needs, and recommend solutions.
Document standards, best practices, and engineering artifacts so others can understand, build, and maintain software systems.
Debug critical production problems and implement effective solutions within and across applications and systems.
Lead continuous learning and process-improvement activities to improve design and engineering practices.
Participate in hiring and mentor team members to grow talent.
Remain compliant with company policies, processes, and legal guidelines; perform other duties as assigned and meet attendance requirements.