Senior Director Data Platform Transformations and Operations

Farm Credit Bank of Texas•Austin, TX

2h•Hybrid

About The Position

Farm Credit Bank of Texas is a $42.2 billion wholesale bank that has been financing agriculture and rural America for over 100 years. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, we provide funding and services to rural lending associations in five states, and we are active in the nation’s capital markets. While you may not be familiar with our name, Farm Credit Bank of Texas plays a critical role in supporting the businesses that make it possible for America to maintain access to an affordable and safe food supply, an industry which is one of the most innovative and evolving of our time. And while you help us deliver on our mission, we deliver on our commitment to you as a valued employee by providing competitive compensation, generous health and wellness benefits packages and an an attractive workplace located along the bluffs of the Colorado River just minutes west of downtown Austin. We seek out top talent in their fields, whether it be technology, finance, accounting, credit, human resources, or other administrative functions, and welcome you to join us in our mission to feed the world. The position leads the end-to-end delivery, modernization, and operational excellence of the enterprise data platform ecosystem. It owns the vision, roadmap, and delivery strategy for both large-scale platform transformations and steady-state operations, ensuring data platforms remain strategically aligned, resilient, scalable, secure, interoperable, and compliant. The role partners across business, association banks, architecture, engineering, operations, and governance functions to advance enterprise data platforms, analytics enablement, and master data management capabilities.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Data Science, or related field.
Minimum of ten (10) years of experience in data platform, data engineering, or analytics delivery roles.
Proven leadership delivering large-scale data platform transformations in complex enterprises.
Experience owning both platform operations and modernization initiatives.
Experience leading projects involving data warehousing, data modeling, and data analysis.
Experience with cloud data platforms such as Azure, AWS, or GCP and modern analytics stacks.
Experience defining enterprise architecture standards and technology roadmaps.
Deep understanding of modern data platforms including cloud, lakehouse, streaming, and semantic modeling.
Strong delivery governance, standards, execution, and operating model design skills.
Executive-level communication and stakeholder management skills.
Strong leadership presence and experience managing senior technical leaders.
Strong proficiency in Python, SQL, and Spark.

Nice To Haves

Experience operating in financial services, regulated, or risk-sensitive environments.
Experience with master data management strategy, governance, and implementation.
Experience with modern data warehouse and lakehouse tools such as Databricks or Snowflake.
Understanding of entity-relationship modeling, metadata systems, and data quality tools and techniques.
Ability to align architecture and design decisions with business, cost, and risk trade-offs.
Ability to learn and adopt emerging technologies, especially in machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Experience collaborating across complex cross-functional teams involving data scientists, business analysts, and stakeholders.

Responsibilities

Define and own the enterprise data platform vision, multi-year roadmap, and delivery strategy spanning operations and modernization initiatives.
Lead large-scale data platform transformations including cloud migrations, platform modernization, tooling consolidation, and architectural evolution.
Partner with business leaders, association banks, and information technology leadership to translate business strategies and regulatory requirements into scalable data and analytics platform solutions.
Translate business strategy, regulatory requirements, and analytics demand into executable data platform initiatives.
Own overall delivery outcomes for the data platform including reliability, scalability, security, cost efficiency, and adoption across enterprise data lakes, warehouses, lakehouses, and master data management capabilities.
Define clear ownership boundaries between transformational initiatives and operational run-and-enhance work.
Mentor and develop platform leadership, engineering managers, and technical staff.
Partner with enterprise architecture and data architecture leaders to ensure platform designs align with target-state architecture and governance standards for data and artificial intelligence.
Guide decisions on core data platforms, tooling, integration patterns, and emerging technologies.
Ensure platform capabilities support data governance, data quality, security, cost management, lineage, and compliance requirements.
Ensure platform delivery meets regulatory, audit, and risk requirements including security controls, data access governance, and resilience expectations.
Establish enterprise standards for master data governance including stewardship models, data ownership, golden record rules, and survivorship logic.
Ensure alignment across architecture, engineering, operations, and business stakeholders.
Establish delivery key performance indicators, success metrics, and governance mechanisms.
Provide leadership and direction to platform team members and leaders, including the leader of Data Platform Operations.
Own platform delivery budgets, investment prioritization, and value realization.
Oversee strategic vendor relationships and platform partnerships.
Ensure all transformation initiatives meet operational, security, and supportability standards prior to production handoff.
Remain accountable for production outcomes, even where day-to-day operations are delegated.

Benefits

Flexible health-and-wellness benefits, including medical insurance, prescription drug coverage, dental insurance, vision care, flexible spending accounts, and more.
401(k) plan that includes immediate vesting of a generous employer match and additional employer contribution
Long-term disability and life insurance
Vacation leave, sick leave, and paid holidays
Fertility benefit and parental leave plan
Up to two days per year to volunteer in local community organizations, services, or events
Ongoing professional-development opportunities
Generous tuition-reimbursement program
Physical fitness incentive plan
Employer matching gifts program