Director of Data Engineering & Analytics

TalentFish•Chicago, IL

22h•Hybrid

About The Position

TalentFish is recruiting a Director of Data Engineering & Analytics for a leading manufacturing organization in the Chicago area. This is a direct-hire, full-time hybrid position requiring three days onsite per week. The director will combine technical expertise in modern data engineering and analytics with leadership, team-building, and business partnership skills. The role requires manufacturing industry experience and knowledge of Snowflake data lakehouse architecture. The director will set data engineering and analytics strategy, develop high-performing teams, and partner with business executives to turn enterprise data into actionable insights. The work aims to improve operational efficiency, manufacturing performance, and profitability through modern data architecture, scalable data products, analytics adoption, and trusted business intelligence.

Requirements

Required experience leading data engineering and analytics initiatives within a manufacturing organization.
Strong understanding of manufacturing operations, supply chain, procurement, inventory, and operational performance metrics.
10+ years of progressive data engineering and analytics experience, including 4+ years leading technical teams.
Demonstrated success building, mentoring, developing, and retaining high-performing teams and fostering accountability, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
Strong technical knowledge of Snowflake data lakehouse architecture, enterprise data engineering, ETL/ELT pipelines, data integration, SQL, data modeling, governance, and business intelligence platforms such as Power BI.
Ability to translate business objectives into actionable data strategies, prioritize investments, manage competing initiatives, and deliver measurable outcomes.
Experience managing teams, delivery processes, budgets, vendors, and enterprise data products.
Excellent executive communication, stakeholder management, organizational leadership, and change management skills.
Must be authorized to work in the United States.
Employment may be contingent upon successful completion of a background check.

Responsibilities

Provide strategic and operational leadership for data engineering and analytics teams; recruit, coach, mentor, and develop talent while establishing expectations, accountability, delivery standards, and team culture.
Lead the evolution and optimization of the enterprise Snowflake data lakehouse, including data architecture, engineering, integration, governance, analytics platforms, and scalable data products.
Partner with manufacturing, supply chain, procurement, finance, and executive leadership to identify opportunities and deliver data-driven solutions that improve production efficiency, inventory optimization, supply chain performance, cost management, and profitability.
Own the data engineering and analytics roadmap, project portfolio, resource allocation, budgets, and delivery lifecycle; establish scalable processes, prioritize initiatives, and ensure solutions are delivered on time with measurable results.
Build relationships with business stakeholders, drive adoption of analytics solutions, establish data quality and governance standards, and lead modernization initiatives that create trusted, actionable business intelligence.