Director of Data Engineering

Jet Support Services, Inc.•Chicago, IL

2d•$180,000 - $220,000

About The Position

JSSI is seeking a Director of Data Engineering to be the technical owner of their Microsoft Fabric and Azure data platform. This role is a player-coach position, requiring leadership of a team of 2-5 engineers while also contributing hands-on to architecture, pipeline development, and setting technical standards. The Director will be responsible for connecting source systems into a reliable data foundation and ensuring the quality and trustworthiness of data for analytics and AI initiatives. This role is crucial for enabling the organization's AI roadmap and empowering the analytics team by resolving data quality and availability issues at the source.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in data engineering, with a track record of building and scaling data platforms in production environments.
3+ years in a leadership role managing engineers, with demonstrated ability to develop talent and build team culture.
Experience as a player-coach, comfortable rolling up sleeves while also setting direction.
Deep expertise with Microsoft Fabric, including Lakehouse and Warehouse architecture, pipelines, and OneLake.
Strong hands-on experience with Azure cloud infrastructure and Azure Data services.
Proficiency in SQL and Python for data engineering and pipeline development.
Experience designing and implementing ETL pipelines across complex, multi-source environments.
Familiarity with CI/CD practices and Git-based deployment workflows for data platforms.
Experience with data governance platforms (Microsoft Purview preferred) and semantic layer design.
Working knowledge of Power BI and enterprise reporting architectures.
Familiarity with AI/ML data patterns and building data products that support machine learning use cases.
Strong communicator who can translate technical complexity into clear language for business stakeholders.
Collaborative partner who works well across analytics, product, and business teams.
High ownership mindset – treating data as a product and holding yourself accountable for its quality and reliability.

Responsibilities

Own the Microsoft Fabric Platform, including architecture, governance, performance, and access control.
Drive the roadmap for the platform, including CI/CD enablement, Git integration, and centralized ingestion workspace design.
Manage Fabric capacity, right-sizing, backup, and disaster recovery.
Design, build, and operate reliable data pipelines connecting source systems into clean, usable data.
Establish monitoring, alerting, and SLA standards for pipeline reliability.
Establish a single source of truth across all systems and acquisitions.
Build and maintain enterprise semantic models for analytics, reporting, and AI use cases.
Partner with data governance to implement Microsoft Purview for cataloging, classification, and data privacy standards.
Enable the analytics team by solving data quality and availability issues at the source.
Build the data foundation for AI initiatives.
Develop and support AI data agents to expand analytics delivery.
Support ML initiatives.
Manage and mentor a team of 2-5 data engineers, setting technical standards and fostering a high-performance culture.
Partner cross-functionally with analytics, product, and business stakeholders to prioritize and deliver.
Represent data engineering in leadership discussions and help shape JSSI's broader data strategy.

Benefits

Competitive and comprehensive compensation packages
Annual base pay generally ranges from $180,000 to $220,000
Annual discretionary bonus plan
Incentive or sales bonus plan
Other forms of additional compensation
Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Retirement savings programs
Benefits start day one of employment for full-time employees in the USA, Canada, or the Philippines.