As Director of Engineering for Data Cloud Platform, you will lead a team to architect and build scalable data infrastructure and systems, defining product strategy and collaborating with cross-functional teams.
Dive in and do the best work of your career at DigitalOcean. Journey alongside a strong community of top talent who are relentless in their drive to build the simplest scalable cloud. If you have a growth mindset, naturally like to think big and bold, and are energized by the fast-paced environment of a true industry disruptor, you’ll find your place here. We value winning together—while learning, having fun, and making a profound difference for the dreamers and builders in the world.
As a Director of Engineering, Data Cloud Platform at DigitalOcean, you will join a dynamic team dedicated to revolutionizing how developers and Digital Native Enterprises harness data. Reporting to the VP of Engineering, you will lead a growing engineering organization focused on delivering an open, scalable, and modern Data Cloud Platform. You will define the technical vision, architecture, and execution roadmap—driving innovation across data ingestion, analytics, observability, and AI/ML pipelines.
What You’ll Do:- Define the long-term product and technical strategy for DigitalOcean’s Data Cloud Platform, integrating open-source tools like Apache Spark, Airflow, Iceberg, dbt with modern cloud data services.
- Architect and build core platform services including scalable data lakes, ingestion frameworks, ELT/ETL pipelines, distributed compute, governance, metadata management, and observability tooling.
- Drive engineering best practices across performance, scalability, and cost optimization for data workloads at petabyte scale.
- Build and lead a high-performing, globally distributed engineering team—including senior engineers, managers, cloud operators, and data infrastructure specialists.
- Collaborate cross-functionally with Product, Design, AI/ML, Platform, Storage, and GTM teams to ensure cohesive and powerful customer-facing data experiences.
- Partner with external vendors and internal stakeholders to evaluate integration and partnership opportunities with leading data ecosystem platforms (e.g., Snowflake, Databricks, AWS Glue).
- Champion engineering excellence and developer simplicity, reflecting the core ethos of DigitalOcean.
- Uptime, freshness, and performance of data services (SLIs/SLOs)
- Adoption and growth of Data Cloud Platform services
- Time to launch new data features or products
- Customer satisfaction with data ingestion and analytics tools
- Team engagement, hiring velocity, and retention
- Experience: 15+ years in software or data engineering, including 5+ years managing managers and leading large-scale distributed systems. Proven background building data platforms or analytics systems used by thousands of customers.
- Technical Depth: Proficiency with Spark, Flink, Kafka, Airflow, dbt, Iceberg/Delta/Hudi, Trino/Presto, Kubernetes, S3-compatible object stores, and platforms like BigQuery, Snowflake, or Databricks. Strong foundation in distributed systems, data modeling, and compute/storage separation.
- Architectural Vision: Deep understanding of ELT/ETL frameworks, schema evolution, governance, and open data formats (Parquet, ORC, Avro). Experience designing multi-tenant, cloud-native systems.
- Leadership Skills: Proven ability to build and mentor distributed teams across geographies (U.S. and India preferred). Skilled in aligning vision, execution, and culture.
- Cross-Functional Influence: Ability to partner with product, AI/ML, platform, and go-to-market teams to define and deliver end-to-end data experiences.
- Customer Mindset: Passion for simplifying complex infrastructure and building self-serve, API-driven, and UI-based data products for developers and cloud-native businesses.
- Education: BS/MS in Computer Science or Engineering, or equivalent experience. Advanced coursework in distributed systems or data engineering preferred.
- $184,320 - $230,400
*This is a remote role
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Why You’ll Like Working for DigitalOcean
- We innovate with purpose. You’ll be a part of a cutting-edge technology company with an upward trajectory, who are proud to simplify cloud and AI so builders can spend more time creating software that changes the world. As a member of the team, you will be a Shark who thinks big, bold, and scrappy, like an owner with a bias for action and a powerful sense of responsibility for customers, products, employees, and decisions.
- We prioritize career development. At DO, you’ll do the best work of your career. You will work with some of the smartest and most interesting people in the industry. We are a high-performance organization that will always challenge you to think big. Our organizational development team will provide you with resources to ensure you keep growing. We provide employees with reimbursement for relevant conferences, training, and education. All employees have access to LinkedIn Learning's 10,000+ courses to support their continued growth and development.
- We care about your well-being. Regardless of your location, we will provide you with a competitive array of benefits to support you from our Employee Assistance Program to Local Employee Meetups to flexible time off policy, to name a few. While the philosophy around our benefits is the same worldwide, specific benefits may vary based on local regulations and preferences.
- We reward our employees. The salary range for this position is based on market data, relevant years of experience, and skills. You may qualify for a bonus in addition to base salary; bonus amounts are determined based on company and individual performance. We also provide equity compensation to eligible employees, including equity grants upon hire and the option to participate in our Employee Stock Purchase Program.
- DigitalOcean is an equal-opportunity employer. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, ancestry, national origin, caste, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, age, disability, medical condition, pregnancy, genetic makeup, marital status, or military service.
Application Limit: You may apply to a maximum of 3 positions within any 180-day period. This policy promotes better role-candidate matching and encourages thoughtful applications where your qualifications align most strongly.
Top Skills
Airflow
Spark
BigQuery
Databricks
Dbt
Flink
Iceberg
Kafka
Kubernetes
S3-Compatible Object Stores
Snowflake
DigitalOcean Santa Clara, California, USA Office
3979 Freedom Cir, Suite 540, Santa Clara, CA, United States, 95054
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