Head of Engineering - Inbound Data

S&P Global • Washington, DC

4d • $185,000 - $265,000

About The Position

This team is essential to the division's data strategy, playing a key role in data transformation and leading efforts to replace legacy technical debt. The team embodies a strong commitment to delivering on business needs and demonstrates exceptional collaboration with both product and business partners. They are known for their collaborative approach, strong technical expertise, and the high energy and dedication they bring to their work.

At S&P Dow Jones Indices, we provide iconic and innovative index solutions backed by unparalleled expertise across the asset-class spectrum. By bringing transparency to the global capital markets, we empower investors everywhere to make decisions with conviction. We’re the largest global resource for index-based concepts, data and research, and home to iconic financial market indicators, such as the S&P 500® and the Dow Jones Industrial Average®. More assets are invested in products based upon our indices than any other index provider in the world. With over USD 7.4 trillion in passively managed assets linked to our indices and over USD 11.3 trillion benchmarked to our indices, our solutions are widely considered indispensable in tracking market performance, evaluating portfolios and developing investment strategies. S&P Dow Jones Indices is a division of S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI). S&P Global is the world’s foremost provider of credit ratings, benchmarks, analytics and workflow solutions in the global capital, commodity and automotive markets. With every one of our offerings, we help many of the world’s leading organizations navigate the economic landscape so they can plan for tomorrow, today. For more information, visit www.spglobal.com/spdji.

Requirements

• 15+ years of engineering experience with 5+ years directly managing and scaling large engineering teams at Director or Head of Engineering level, including experience managing managers and guiding Staff/Principal-level individual contributors through organizational transformation
• Deep expertise in Databricks Data Intelligence Platform including Unity Catalog, Delta Lake internals, Delta Live Tables, Databricks Workflows, MLflow, and Mosaic AI, with ability to engage in technical discussions and provide strategic guidance on complex platform trade-offs
• Extensive experience architecting enterprise-scale data platforms on AWS including services such as Amazon S3, AWS Glue, Amazon EMR, AWS Lake Formation, with strong understanding of multi-region deployment strategies and security patterns (IAM, VPC, KMS)
• Proven technical depth in Apache Iceberg internals, schema evolution, and cross-platform table strategies, combined with hands-on experience in autonomous AI agent deployment and RAG pipeline architecture for production environments
• Demonstrated ability to build and scale engineering organizations from 20+ to 100+ engineers while establishing rigorous engineering standards, agile delivery practices, and operational SLAs for complex data and AI products
• Strong leadership and communication skills with experience translating complex technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders and influencing executive decision-making through data-driven recommendations and ROI analysis

Nice To Haves

• AWS and/or Databricks certifications with experience partnering with FinOps and cloud platform teams to optimize cloud consumption, performance, and platform ROI across multi-cloud data platform strategies
• Experience with semantic modeling, knowledge graphs, and enterprise data governance frameworks including metadata management and secure data sharing patterns at enterprise scale
• Background in LLMOps, model evaluation, and prompt orchestration with familiarity integrating AWS AI/ML services such as Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock into broader enterprise AI platform strategies
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code tools such as Terraform, CI/CD pipelines, and deployment automation including Databricks Asset Bundles for repeatable, auditable platform delivery across distributed cloud environments

Responsibilities

• Lead and scale a world-class engineering organization of 100+ data engineers, ML engineers, and platform developers, including managing managers and Staff/Principal-level engineers while driving hiring, retention, and talent development strategies
• Provide strategic technical direction for enterprise-scale lakehouse architecture using Databricks Data Intelligence Platform (Unity Catalog, Delta Lake, Delta Live Tables, Mosaic AI) and AWS cloud services, ensuring highly performant, cost-effective, and interoperable data foundations
• Drive the organization's transition to production-grade autonomous AI systems, leveraging Databricks AI stack including MLflow, Feature Store, Vector Search, and Model Serving to deliver measurable business value beyond proof-of-concept implementations
• Establish rigorous engineering standards and operational excellence practices including SLOs, error budgets, incident management, and infrastructure-as-code using tools such as Terraform and Databricks Asset Bundles for reliable platform delivery
• Oversee enterprise semantic modeling and RAG architecture strategies, ensuring AI systems are grounded in Unity Catalog-governed data assets with proper access controls, lineage tracking, and auditability to prevent hallucinations
• Foster a high-performance engineering culture rooted in psychological safety, continuous learning, and rapid experimentation while partnering with Product, FinOps, and executive leadership to translate business goals into actionable technical roadmaps

Benefits

• Health care coverage designed for the mind and body.
• Generous time off helps keep you energized for your time on.
• Access a wealth of resources to grow your career and learn valuable new skills.
• Secure your financial future through competitive pay, retirement planning, a continuing education program with a company-matched student loan contribution, and financial wellness programs.
• It’s not just about you. S&P Global has perks for your partners and little ones, too, with some best-in class benefits for families.
• From retail discounts to referral incentive awards—small perks can make a big difference.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Senior
• Education Level: No Education Listed