Head of Data Engineering

Over the last 20 years, Ares’ success has been driven by our people and our culture. Today, our team is guided by our core values – Collaborative, Responsible, Entrepreneurial, Self-Aware, Trustworthy – and our purpose to be a catalyst for shared prosperity and a better future. Through our recruitment, career development and employee-focused programming, we are committed to fostering a welcoming and inclusive work environment where high-performance talent of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives can build careers within this exciting and growing industry.

Job Description

Position Overview 

We are seeking an exceptional Principal / Head of Data Engineering to establish and lead our data engineering function from the ground up. This role reports to the Head of Data and AI Engineering and is responsible for the complete design, development, and implementation of a world-class modern data platform. You will drive the strategic evolution of our data infrastructure, enabling both structured and unstructured data workflows at scale. You will spearhead the upgrade and modernization of our existing Azure Data Factory pipelines to next-generation orchestration tools, implement efficient data ingress and egress patterns, establish AI/LLM-native data capabilities through advanced vector indexing and streaming architectures, and build a strong data engineering organization from the ground up. You will collaborate closely with cloud engineering, network engineering, and data products teams to architect a unified data lake and comprehensive data governance framework that supports diverse analytical and operational needs across our portfolio. 

Key Responsibilities 

Organization Building & Team Leadership 

• Build and scale the data engineering organization from inception, defining team structure, roles, and responsibilities across the function 

• Establish engineering culture emphasizing technical excellence, collaboration, ownership, and continuous learning 

• Recruit, mentor, and develop high-performing data engineers with expertise in modern data platforms, ETL/ELT, orchestration, streaming, and vector databases 

• Partner with Human Resources on recruitment strategy, hiring processes, and organizational scaling as the firm grows 

Strategic Vision & Roadmap 

• Establish a comprehensive, multi-year data engineering strategy aligned with firm objectives 

• Define technical roadmaps for data infrastructure, platform capabilities, and technology adoption 

• Establish governance frameworks for data engineering decisions, standards, and best practices 

• Lead technology evaluation and vendor selection processes with clear ROI and strategic fit 

Platform Architecture & Modernization 

• Design and architect a modern, scalable data platform leveraging Databricks on Azure that supports both structured and unstructured data at petabyte scale 

• Lead the modernization of legacy Azure Data Factory (ADF) pipelines to production-grade orchestration platforms such as Prefect, or Apache Airflow 

• Develop a comprehensive upgrade and migration roadmap for ETL/ELT pipelines, ensuring zero data loss, minimal downtime, and improved observability 

• Lead the implementation of serverless and Zero ETL patterns to eliminate infrastructure management overhead and reduce time-to-insight 

• Own cost optimization initiatives across the data platform, balancing performance, reliability, and operational efficiency 

ETL/ELT & Orchestration Excellence 

• Build deep