Director, Data Engineering

About Engine At Engine, we’re transforming business travel into something personalized, rewarding, and simple. For too long, managing travel and spend has been overwhelming and fragmented — we’re here to change that. We believe the future of travel should be seamless and powered by technology that delights customers at every step. That’s why we’re building a platform that brings together corporate travel, a powerful charge card, and modern spend management in one place. To make this vision real, we’re looking for exceptional, mission-driven people to help redefine how businesses manage and experience travel. More than 30,000 companies already rely on Engine to support over 1 million travelers and billions in annual bookings each year. Cash flow positive with rapid growth, we pair exclusive Engine-only rates, industry-leading rewards, and intelligent automation to help businesses save money while delivering world-class personalization and convenience. Backed by Telescope Partners, Blackstone, and Permira, Engine has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing travel and fintech platforms in North America, with honors including the Deloitte Fast 500 and Built In’s Best Places to Work. About the Role We’re seeking a Director of Data Engineering to define the vision and execute the long-term strategy for our global data ecosystem. This is a foundational leadership role responsible for the re-architecture of our data warehouse into a world-class platform. You will not only oversee the migration to modern infrastructure but will also be the primary architect of our data governance framework and cross-functional data democratization strategy. We are looking for a visionary leader who can balance technical depth in the modern data stack (Snowflake, Airflow, dbt) with the executive presence to influence our product and business roadmaps. Your Mission As a key leader within the Engine team, you will move beyond project management to organizational leadership. Your core responsibilities include: Strategic Vision & Roadmap: Define the 2–3 year vision for the data platform. Align data engineering initiatives with overarching company goals to ensure data is a primary driver of business growth. Organizational Leadership: Build and scale a multi-tiered engineering organization. Foster a culture of technical excellence, mentorship, and high accountability, ensuring a robust leadership pipeline within your team. Data Governance & Compliance: Establish and enforce global standards for data quality, security, and privacy (GDPR/CCPA). Own the framework for data cataloging and lineage to ensure "one source of truth" across the enterprise. Operational Excellence & ROI: Optimize the total cost of ownership (TCO) for our data infrastructure. Manage vendor relationships (Snowflake, etc.) and budgets while ensuring the stack scales efficiently with company growth. Executive Stakeholder Management: Serve as the primary liaison between Engineering and the C-suite. Translate technical debt and infrastructure needs into business value, and turn business requirements into scalable technical architectures. Innovation & Architecture: Drive the adoption of cutting-edge technologies (AI/ML integration, real-time streaming) to keep Engine at the forefront of the industry. What You’ll Bring to Engine We are looking for an executive-minded leader who thrives at the intersection of deep technical "know-how" and high-level business strategy: Experience: 10+ years in Data Engineering/Software Engineering, with at least 5+ years in senior leadership roles (managing managers or leading large-scale departments). Strategic Technical Expertise: Deep architectural knowledge of the modern data stack (Snowflake, Airflow, dbt, Airbyte). Experience leading large-scale cloud migrations and designing systems that support both BI and Machine Learning workflows. Change Management: Proven ability to lead organizations through significant technical shifts and cultural changes, spe…