Mgr, Data Platform Engineering

UFCU•Austin, TX

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) is seeking a Manager, Data Platform Engineering to lead a technical team in delivering UFCU’s enterprise data platform. This includes a portfolio of data products, pipelines, and curated datasets that power analytics, reporting, AI initiatives, and data-driven decision-making across the organization. This is a technical leadership role that blends people management with technical and operational accountability, reporting to the Director of Platform Engineering. Responsibilities include platform governance, product delivery execution, and platform operations. The team operates using agile methodologies, partnering closely with Data & Analytics and other business stakeholders to deliver best-in-class data products. Core responsibilities include Data Ingestion & Integration, Data Engineering & Quality, Platform Operations, and Database Administration. This role supports a hybrid work model with 2 days per week on-site at the UFCU Plaza building and manages a core team in addition to contractors.

Requirements

5+ years leading a platform engineering team (people management, delivery accountability, coaching/development).
Hands-on experience building and operating data pipelines and data products in production environments.
Proven experience with Databricks, including Spark-based transformation, job orchestration, and the Medallion architecture.
Strong SQL skills and experience with SQL Server, including oversight of both on-prem and managed Azure SQL Server instances.
Experience leading or directing a DBA function, including performance, availability, and operational support.
Demonstrated experience understanding data architecture and data modeling concepts.
Experience implementing data observability, pipeline monitoring, data quality checks, lineage, and alerting.
Experience ingesting data from core operational/source systems into a centralized data platform.
Experience with CI/CD pipelines, automated testing and source control.
Experience working in an agile environment.
Experience enabling business intelligence and data products used by Analysts and PowerBI.
Experience managing vendor or contractor resources, including offshore development teams.
Willingness and ability to lead a 24/7 on-call rotation comprised of the team members.

Nice To Haves

Hands-on experience with Databricks Unity Catalog for data governance, lineage, and access control.
Experience with Azure cloud services supporting data platforms (e.g., identity, secrets management, storage, monitoring, and data services).
Experience with enterprise data models and reference architectures across multiple business domains.
Experience in financial services or another regulated environment with strong security/compliance expectations.
Experience scaling delivery with a mix of FTE and contractor resources, including offshore vendor/contract management.

Responsibilities

Lead a data platform engineering team, delivering reliable, secure, reusable data products, pipelines, and curated datasets that enable key analytics and business outcomes.
Provide hands-on technical leadership including data architecture understanding, technical design guidance, and engineering sign-off for ingestion pipelines, transformations, and data products.
Establish and maintain reference architectures, data modeling standards, and engineering best practices.
Own the data platform roadmap and governance, including data product design standards, documentation, versioning, SDLC, data quality, lineage, cataloging, access governance via Databricks Unity Catalog, and consistent patterns for ingestion, transformation, error handling, and pipeline resiliency.
Guide data engineering delivery and operations on Databricks, including Medallion architecture, notebook and job orchestration, reusable data assets, performance tuning, cost optimization, release readiness, operational stability, CI/CD pipelines, automated testing strategies, and secure SDLC quality gates.
Oversee database administration across SQL Server environments, including performance tuning, indexing, backup/recovery, high availability, patching, capacity and cost planning across on-prem and managed Azure SQL Server instances, and coaching DBAs.
Ensure data reliability and operational excellence by monitoring for pipeline failures, establishing incident response practices, runbooks, post-incident reviews, observability practices (pipeline monitoring, data quality checks, dashboards, alerts), and defining/tracking SLAs/SLOs, data freshness, MTTR, reliability trends, and capacity planning.
Embed security and compliance into engineering practices, partnering with Security/Risk/Compliance to ensure secure data access patterns, secrets management, encryption, least privilege, Unity Catalog access controls, and audit readiness.
Enable internal teams, analytics partners, and AI initiatives by delivering a clear, well-documented catalog of data products and onboarding documentation, supportable consumption patterns for Power BI reporting and downstream analytics/AI teams, and partnership with stakeholders to define and deliver prioritized data products.
Manage delivery execution and team operations, including participation in Agile ceremonies, managing operational tasks on Azure DevOps Boards, prioritization, dependency management, stakeholder communication, hiring, coaching, performance management, and vendor/contractor management, including coordination of onshore/offshore contractors.
Lead, inspire, motivate, mentor, and develop team members by providing guidance and training to attain departmental and individual development goals and support organizational needs.
Serve as a role model in transparent communication, two-way dialogue, and proactive communication to the team.
Utilize a proactive, ethical, and consultative approach to build a successful and effective team to operate according to UFCU guiding principles, providing guidance and resources and removing obstacles as needed.
Create an environment that builds, encourages, and rewards teamwork, collaboration, and delivering business value.
Provide team leadership based on servant leadership principles, caring for the whole person.
Plan, monitor, and appraise job results with an emphasis on coaching and developing employees to achieve desired performance results.
Regularly consult with partners to determine team performance and identify opportunities for improvement.
Help teams achieve their career goals. Ensure team members understand how to have an impact and are aware of that impact when they've made it.
Embrace and promote a change-oriented and continuous process improvement culture.
Manage vendor relationships with service partners.
Oversee vendor and contract management of relevant third-party contractors.
Manage and collaborate with third-party vendors, ensuring scope, quality, service levels, and key terms meet or exceed requirements.
In collaboration with senior leadership and other department managers, establish annual budget with identification of planned expenses for new or enhanced programs and services.
Ensure effective control of results. Take action to guarantee achievement of objectives that fall within designated budget.
Actively pursue cost improvement opportunities to reduce capital costs, operational cost, and expenses.
Adhere to all company policies, procedures, and business ethics codes.
Complete required regulatory training as assigned.
Maintain strict adherence and compliance to all laws, rules, regulations, and internal controls specific to the role, including but not limited to Bank Secrecy Act, Anti-Money Laundering, USA Patriot Act, OFAC and Fair Lending regulations.