Director, Engineering Governance- Bellevue, WA

DataBricks•Mountain View, CA

35d

About The Position

We are seeking a highly technical and influential Director of Engineering, Governance Foundation to define how security, privacy, and responsible data practices are built into the core of Databricks' products and infrastructure. This role is not simply about running programs-it is about designing and scaling the engineering platforms, guardrails, and operating models that make secure and compliant product development the default across a rapidly growing, multi-cloud ecosystem. This is a strategic, hands-on technical leadership role with significant cross-company impact. You will lead a team of senior security engineers, partner with product and infrastructure leaders, and shape the foundational governance systems that enable Databricks to innovate quickly while maintaining world-class security and customer trust.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in large-scale software engineering, with at least several years leading engineering managers and senior ICs.
Strong technical grounding in backend systems, distributed systems, identity/security, or enterprise cloud platforms.
Experience defining governance, security, or enterprise-grade platform capabilities.
A background as a senior IC (e.g., Staff/Principal Engineer) at some point-this role requires deep technical credibility.
Proven success hiring, developing, and retaining senior engineering talent.
Expertise driving cross-functional technical programs with senior stakeholders.

Nice To Haves

Experience building cloud-agnostic or multi-cloud services.
Background in enterprise features such as access control, policy engines, compliance, or identity systems.
Experience leading organizations through scaling phases in high-growth environments.

Responsibilities

Security & Privacy Governance Architecture
Define the company-wide strategy for embedding security, privacy, and responsible data use across engineering workflows and platform components.
Build scalable governance frameworks that help engineering teams design secure systems from the start, not after the fact.
Incident Learning & Prevention
Establish and lead a Security & Privacy Postmortem Review process that drives learning, accountability, and long-term resilience.
Ensure insights from incidents translate into systemic improvements across tools, infrastructure, and engineering culture.
Security Champions & Distributed Expertise
Rebuild and scale a Security Champions Network that brings security and governance expertise directly into product and infrastructure teams.
Create centralized enablement, tooling, and shared learning systems that allow thousands of engineers to integrate security seamlessly.
Data Governance for Products & AI
Lead efforts to ensure responsible data use across AI/ML systems, SaaS environments, and internal workspaces.
Define and enforce policies that uphold privacy, integrity, auditability, and proper data lifecycle management.
Developer-Centric Security Enablement
Transform security into a key enabler for engineering velocity.
Deliver automation, self-service tools, and intelligent guardrails that reduce developer friction while increasing safety and compliance.
Build JIT (Just-In-Time) security education and systems that proactively surface risky behavior before it becomes an incident.
Security Maturity & Customer Trust
Identify and elevate Databricks' security posture to exceed DB50 customer expectations, including areas such as:
audit logging
controlled access workflows
secure asset import/export
behavior monitoring and lineage
Partner with security, IT, and compliance teams to ensure readiness for the most demanding enterprise and regulated environments.