Director of Data Platform

Kard is transforming customer loyalty with our rewards-as-a-service API platform. We empower our partners, from neobanks to financial institutions and beyond, to offer tailored rewards that celebrate customers' daily transactions. Backed by $30M from industry-leading investors and seasoned experts, we are reshaping the future of customer engagement.

About the Role

Play a critical role in our company's growth by leading the data team, integrating data initiatives with our technical infrastructure and product strategies. As a manager and mentor to a team of highly skilled professionals, you will ensure their professional development and alignment with business goals, while facilitating collaboration across product management, engineering, finance, and sales. Reporting directly to the VP of Product and Engineering, your leadership in driving Kard's data strategy will be integral to our entire company’s success.

Responsibilities

• Lead the integration of data initiatives with Kard's broader technical vision, aligning them with business goals and operational reliability. Collaborate closely with the product team to shape and execute a compelling data strategy.
• Oversee data engineering efforts, ensuring robust integration with application architecture, continuous improvement of our data infrastructure, and seamless third-party connections.
• Guide the development and operationalization of ML models for customer segmentation, transaction enrichment, lift-optimized personalization, automated experiments, and more, ensuring alignment with product goals and engineering architecture.
• Drive alignment between data initiatives and business objectives, incorporating financial understanding into decision-making and contributing to strategic discussions across the organization.
• Foster a supportive and inclusive environment, managing and mentoring the team to achieve high performance, growth, and effective collaboration. Coach both technical and interpersonal skills to build a cohesive team that elevates every part of the business they touch.
• Ensure efficient project execution by guiding your team to experiment intelligently, deliver incremental value, and uphold high standards of quality, including security, data privacy, and operational excellence.
• Travel to attend annual and semi-annual company meetings, and as needed by your job responsibilities
• Additional duties as assigned

Desired Skills

• Strong experience in platform engineering, with secondary expertise in data science and engineering.
• Proven track record of managing and mentoring teams, with a focus on fostering growth, collaboration, and alignment with business goals.
• Proficiency in SQL, Python, AWS services, and distributed systems; competence in Databricks, dbt, Go, TypeScript, Datadog, and Terraform is highly desirable.
• Experience in coaching, championing, and implementing Lean and DevOps …