Director, Data

About Sovrn

Every interesting company solves essential problems for other people. Sovrn is a Software and Data business that helps Open Web businesses remain independent. We help them understand their business better, operate more efficiently, and make and keep more money.

• We believe in the freedom and free flow of information.
• We believe the Open Web is the largest source of this information.
• We believe in helping Open Web businesses remain Independent.

Through Software products and Data solutions, we help our customers:

• Understand their business better, so they can make better decisions.
• Operate their business more efficiently, so they can invest in what matters most.
• Make (and Keep) more money, so they control their own destiny.

About the Role

The Director of Data will lead Sovrn’s Data Science and Data Platform teams, providing strategic and hands-on leadership across the full data lifecycle—from infrastructure and integration to analytics and machine learning. This role is responsible for building and scaling a high-performing, collaborative engineering organization that transforms data into business value.

The ideal candidate brings deep technical experience across platforms and cloud environments (GCP and AWS), a proven track record in engineering leadership, and a strong ability to partner cross-functionally. They will manage sprint planning, mentor engineering and data science talent, and align product and data strategies through effective communication and prioritization. The role requires both upward and downward management capabilities and a strong cost-benefit analysis mindset to guide scalable, high-impact decision-making.

What you’ll be doing: 

• Provide strategic and operational leadership for both the Data Science and Data Platform teams, including hiring, performance management, and career growth, while fostering a culture of innovation, collaboration, and technical excellence.
• Apply deep technical expertise and cost-benefit thinking to guide decisions around platform architecture, data infrastructure, and cloud services (GCP and AWS).
• Own the end-to-end data supply chain, ensuring high standards in data quality, infrastructure, and analytics capabilities.
• Collaborate closely with Commercial and Product leadership to prioritize work across teams, balance business impact with technical complexity, and ensure timely, high-quality delivery.
• Communicate clearly and effectively across all levels—managing up to senior leadership and guiding direct reports—with transparency, clarity, and influence.
• Drive agile execution through effective sprint planning, coordination, and continuous improvement across cross-functional data initiatives.
• Stay abreast with the latest developments in Data Science & AI, and adapt them to solve business problems.
• Support a collaborative culture, provide mentorship and hiring experience to develop and maintain a further talent pipeline.

A successful candidate will have: 

• 5+ years of engineering leadership experience, including people management and cross-functional collaboration.
• 10+ years of software development experience across a range of platforms, technologies, and architectures.
• Experience with data streaming/pipelining tools (e.g. DataBricks).
• Proven expertise with cloud infrastructure, particularly GCP and AWS.
• Deep understanding of statistical modeling, machine learning, data engineering, MLOps and experimentation techniques.
• Experience with data governance, privacy and compliance. Both regulatory understanding as well as security and quality controls.
• Strong communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to manage up and down.
• Demonstrated ability to apply cost-benefit analysis to technical and strategic decisions.
• Awareness of and attention to infrastructure costs.
• SLA/SLO ownership including incident and change management experience

Location: This position is designated as hybrid, based in our Boulder, Colorado office. Applicants should be able to commute to our Boulder location as required. #LI-Hybrid

We understand that no candidate is perfectly qualified for any job. Experience comes in different forms; many skills are transferable; and passion goes a long way. Even more important than your resume is a clear demonstration of accountability and the ability to thrive in a fluid and collaborative environment. We expect you to learn new things in this role and encourage you to apply if your experience is close to what we're looking for.

Sovrn Core Values: Candid, Customer Empathy, Learning, Scrap